I wonder, after reading Tristan Cork's latest article ("Split in anti-hunt movement over bid to tighten law", January 6), how much more time the animal rights lobby intends to spend attempting to tinker with a law that, to many astute observers, is already dead in the water.

For after even the most casual visit to the average hunt (in my case, regular visits to the Quantock Staghounds), it is painfully obvious that to all intents and purpose it is hunting as usual. The reasons for this is hardly surprising when you realise that the Hunting Act 2004 was nothing more than a confidence trick perpetrated by the Blair Government on a gullible public.

Desperate to placate a vociferous backbench who were intent on forcing the government to honour its manifesto promise to abolish blood sports, but unwilling to anger the countryside ruling elite, an ingenious plot was hatched. The Hunting Act would be passed but in such a way that it would be legally ambiguous, worded loosely and open to so many legal interpretations that it would be unenforceable.

This would give the appearance of honouring the manifesto commitment, and remove the threat of anti-hunt protest and legitimacy of such groups as the hunt saboteurs, turning the whole issue in to a protracted legal battle.

When the next Tory government repealed the act, then the opposition would be so weakened, having exhausted its resources with endless court actions, while the saboteurs would be virtually non-existent as a result of their years of inactivity, that there would be little, if any, effective opposition to the return of hunting in all its glory.

In reality, this worthless Act has abolished nothing and achieved little other than to offer the prospect of legitimising blood sports in perpetuity. For once a future Tory government repeals the Hunting Act, who will ever attempt to touch the issue again?

Ian Pedler Paulton Bristol