David Cameron has lost the countryside

When hunt supporters visit the office of a Tory cabinet minister these days, they like to turn up armed and dangerous. And so it was when a delegation from the Countryside Alliance arrived for a private meeting with the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson a few weeks ago, wielding an alarming new poll of their membership. Setting the dossier down in front of Mr Paterson (one of their few allies in government), they spelt out the bottom line: 13 per cent of Countryside Alliance members now intend to vote Ukip in the next general election.

Let’s be clear: given that the CA is basically the voice of the shires, that is only a shade less shocking than saying that 13 per cent of Mr Cameron’s own family intend to vote Ukip, although that is always possible, I suppose.

According to the poll, 66 per cent of Countryside Alliance members would vote Conservative if there were an election tomorrow, an almost 20 per cent drop in just a couple of years, while 13 per cent would vote Ukip and 2 per cent Labour. It’s particularly significant because this same poll a few years ago showed negligible support for Ukip and other parties.

Mr Paterson, who understands the countryside, was rightly worried. He saw at once that this wasn’t just about the vote, but about the whole network of support for the Tories outside London. It’s difficult to over-emphasise, for instance, how much the Conservatives rely on the hunt. Some 12,000 hunt supporters campaigned and leafleted for the Tories at the last election. They were the backbone of the party’s effort, pouring into marginal seats in an operation of military precision co-ordinated by a campaign group called Vote OK.

These farmers and squires had a spring in their step as they pounded pavements back then; they were looking forward to Cameron fulfilling his pledge to overturn the ban on hunting, showing that Labour’s class war against them was over.