Tory MP Anne Widdecombe argues that it isn’t, that the law is routinely broken and that more needs to be done to police it. She recognises that police resources are stretched, and so her proposed solution is to license and protect hunt monitors, members of the public who film hunts to collect video evidence of offences.

Without considering the specifics of any particular alleged breach of the law, we can see why the general context of hunts makes it difficult to discover whether an offence has been committed.

First, there are difficulties in collecting evidence. Hunts are fast-paced, and take place over a wide area on an improvised route, making them very difficult to observe. The fact that hunts go into wild areas, away from people, also reduces the number of incidental witnesses to them.

Second, many witnesses are likely to have reasons to distort the truth about what happened on a hunt. Those on the hunt (and the landowners) will want to avoid prosecution for any offences committed, so may lie about their actions. Hunt monitors tend to be opposed to hunting, looking for ways to incriminate the hunt, which means that their evidence must be treated with extreme caution. Add in the financial interests that locals have in the hunts continuing, and reports of hunters intimidating witnesses, and there will be concerns about the credibility of most of the witnesses to a hunt. 

Third, interpreting the evidence can be difficult. The law is complex and technical. Whether an offence has been committed can turn on such details as the number of dogs, what the dogs are being used for, why the animal is being hunted, or whether it is harmed. In some cases, understanding whether the law has been broken will take legal expertise that many observers lack.

All of these things make it difficult to be sure of just how many hunting offences are being committed. They also go some way to explaining why offences that are committed may go unprosecuted. If we want to see the Hunting Act enforced, then the challenge is to find a way of collecting evidence that addresses these problems.

Mugabe’s time as President has seen the ruin of the country. His government has been criticised as riddled with corruption, and with high unemployment and runaway inflation Zimbabwe is now suffering financial disaster. There have also been reports of frequent attacks on his political opponents as he seeks to cling to power, including the use of wide-spread intimidation and of torture, and he is accused of having stolen the last election.

Five weeks ago, there was a Presidential election, and a real hope that Mugabe might be ousted. Things in Zimbabwe have become so bad that it seemed possible that Mugabe would no longer be able to control the opposition to him.

Following the election, Mugabe’s rival Morgan Tsvangirai quickly claimed outright victory. He didn’t have direct access to the ballots, but as a measure to promote fairness polling stations had been required to post local results, and Tsvangirai’s MDC party said that according to these results he had won 50.3% of the vote, more than the 50% required to make him the new President.

Meanwhile, Mugabe’s Zanu PF party refused to publish the results, amidst claims that they were looking for ways to rig them.

Today, finally, the official results were announced, giving Tsvangirai a win but not a large enough share of the vote to avoid a second round of voting with just him and Mugabe on the ballot paper. Whether or not Tsvangirai really won the vote outright is a mystery.

Both parties have some access to the results (ability to see), Tsvangirai’s to those posted outside the polling stations and Mugabe’s to the actual ballots cast, which makes them more credible.

Both have a clear vested interest to lie about the results in order to snatch power, however, damaging their credibility.

Although Mugabe’s reputation for rigging elections gives him the least credibility, without a neutral observer able to operate unhindered by Zanu PF it pretty much impossible for us to know what the outcome of the election really was.

The BBC summarised his comments about Burrell like this:

Lord Baker suggested to the jury that Mr Burrell may have given evidence while thinking that “whatever he said might have an impact on his future enterprises”. Mr Burrell worked for Diana from 1992 and described himself as “Diana’s rock” – but Lord Baker said he was “quite a porous rock” given that many of the princess’ secrets were made public. The coroner said: “I advise you to proceed with caution especially if you are left with the impression that he only told you what he wanted you to hear. “On the other hand he was close to Diana and was particularly well-placed to hear information that others were not. The fact that he has not told you the truth on some occasions does not mean you cannot accept anything he he has told you. But you should proceed with caution.”

[Source: BBC News: Diana's butler 'obviously' lying]

In other words, although Burrell, being close to Diana, has a good ability to see, his vested interest to advance his own career means that he can’t be relied on.

A chef from Swindon faces losing his US cooking show after it was discovered that he had lied about his achievements. His desire to promote himself to open up career opportunities seems to have got the better of him.

Robert Irvine claimed to have made part of Charles and Diana’s wedding cake, and to have prepared meals for Presidents, despite having only picked fruit for the cake and worked in the White House mess. He also claimed to have a Knighthood, and that the Queen had given him a Scottish castle as a present, both of which Buckingham Palace dispute.

Irvine had not only worked on Dinner: Impossible, but had also written a book to accompany the show and lent his name to a “Royal Titanium” cookware range (which some vendors are now withdrawing from sale).

Irvine is far from alone in getting a career boost from half-truths, however; reportedly, one in four people lie on their CVs. Vested interest can affect us all.

There is always a concern with surveys commissioned by a group with a clear vested interest, such as this one: the way that the questions were framed might have distorted the results. Interestingly, some of the questions in this poll were varied, making it possible to see this phenomenon in action.

Half of those polled were asked about their attitude towards the current law which allows abortion up to 24 weeks with the consent of two doctors. The other half were asked about their attitude towards the current law which allows abortion up to 24 weeks but were not told about the requirement for doctors’ consent. 54% of the first group agreed with the current law, while 28% opposed it; 46% of the second group agreed with the current law, while 38% opposed it. This serves to illustrate how much difference the way that questions are framed can make.

The conclusion drawn from the data by Bpas is also of interest. If their argument were that the public endorsement of abortion implies that there is nothing wrong with it (call this “the moral argument”), then it would clearly commit the appeal to popularity fallacy. The moral status of an action and public opinion towards it are two different matters. If the majority of the population backed racial discrimination, for example, then that wouldn’t make it right.

If, on the other hand, Bpas’s argument is not to do with the moral status of abortion but with the legal status of abortion (call this “the legal argument”), then they may be on more solid ground. The argument, “The public backs abortion on demand, therefore the government should permit abortion on demand”, need not be understood as drawing a conclusion about whether abortion is morally right or wrong. Instead, it could be understood as drawing a conclusion about how the government should legislate.

Why is the second argument better than the first? Because it rests on a more plausible assumption.

The moral argument, in inferring the conclusion “There is nothing wrong with abortion” from the reason “Most people believe that there is nothing wrong with abortion”, makes an assumption: “Whatever most people believe is the case.” This assumption, however, is often false; often the majority opinion is incorrect. This is why appeals to popularity are fallacious.

The assumption made by the legal argument is slightly different. The legal argument infers the conclusion “The government should permit abortion on demand” from the reason “Most people want the government to permit abortion on demand.” The assumption made by this argument is that the government ought to do whatever most people want the government to do. This assumption is not obviously true–we can imagine situations in which following public opinion would lead to catastrophe–but it is more defensible than that made by the moral argument. In a democratic system, where the government is elected to rule for the people, the legal argument might just fly.

One thing that this shows is the importance of clarifying precisely what an argument is before it can be assessed. Several different conclusions are attributed to Bpas in several different places: e.g. that abortion should be available on demand, that the current legislation should be relaxed, and that it is time for the government to review abortion legislation. The stronger the conclusion they draw from the data, the weaker their argument gets.