Letters | 3 January 2013

Caught in the ratchet

Sir: Melissa Kite (‘Hunting for Dave’, 29 December) wonders why the Prime Minister won’t reopen the question of hunting. Is it not just possible that the reason given is the real reason — he knows he could not win a vote on it? There is no point in leading the troops into a time-wasting and embarrassing defeat.

I suspect that the hunting ban is an example of ‘ratchet politics’ — once one side has done something, the other side finds it impossible to undo it. (The opposite is ‘ping-pong politics’, where the parties take it in turns to undo the other side’s changes.) The interesting thing is how often such a ratchet move, however divisive and resisted at the time, is eventually seen to be a major step forward which no sensible person would want to undo. Two examples from the past are extending the vote to women and the creation of the NHS.