Hunting supporters take protest to Blair's home

Supporters of fox-hunting demonstrated outside Prime Minister Tony Blair's northern home yesterday in what they say is the first in a series of protests against a looming ban on the centuries-old pursuit.

Blowing horns and waving banners, the protestors arrived as Mr Blair prepared to meet his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern at the house in Trimdon, County Durham, ahead of talks on the Northern Ireland peace process.

A police spokesman said one man had been arrested for breaching the peace in an otherwise peaceful 100-strong demonstration.

The protest came as Mr Blair's government is set to force a bill through parliament to ban hunting foxes with hounds in England and Wales - an issue which has inflamed passions across the political spectrum in Britain for years.

Fox-hunting is denounced as a barbaric blood sport by its opponents but defended as an essential part of Britain's rural heritage by its supporters, who say a ban would infringe their civil rights and abolish a valid way of controlling fox numbers.

A group of five from protest organisers the Countryside Alliance was allowed to enter the house to present their case to Mr Blair.

The alliance said yesterday's demonstration, which it estimates some 350 attended, was the first in a series planned against the fox-hunting vote in Parliament next Wednesday.

"This is the first step in a long campaign of very visual rallies and demonstrations," James Bates, a spokesman for the group, said from outside the Prime Minister's home.

The group plans a protest outside parliament on the day of the vote, to which thousands will turn up, Mr Bates said.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said: "He (Blair) understands perfectly well that this is an issue about which many people feel strongly on all sides of the argument."

The bill to ban hunting will include a two-year time lag and parliamentarians will be allowed a "free vote" on Wednesday, not tied to party lines.

The two-year delay is an attempt, say analysts, to neutralise the divisive issue in the run-up to next year's expected election.

Mr Blair pledged to ban fox-hunting when he came to power in 1997 but the plan has stalled due to opposition in the unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords.

The government is now expected to use the Parliament Act, a device to overrule the Lords, to force the bill into law.