The IFAW, which is a private company not a charity, has put its enormous financial resources behind the cause of a hunting ban in Britain.Mr Davies brought Canada’s annual slaughter of baby seal pups to an end with a 20-year campaign which featured one of the most dramatic newspaper photographs of the twentieth century. Robert Worcester, chairman of MORI, will tell him that the latest research shows that even among Tory voters, there is a substantial majority – more than three to one – in favour of outlawing fox-hunting.It will be satisfying news for the man from an obscure Welsh background who went on to build the world’s wealthiest animal protection organisation, the US-based International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). HE IS hardly known here, and he emigrated from Britain as a schoolboy failure in 1955. But the pounds 1m he donated to the Labour Party to ban fox- hunting is helping keep the issue high on the Government’s agenda

Brian Davies is in the UK this week. Tomorrow morning he will visit the London office of a leading polling organisation to check on public opinion regarding a hunting ban.
Here on a visit from his Florida home with his second wife Gloria, the tanned and smartly dressed Mr Davies, 64, will like what he hears. The 19 packs of mink hounds and three of staghounds complete the roster of hunts which pursue animals with dogs.Their members come from all sections of the rural community, according to the Countryside Alliance, the main body defending hunting.

Although annual hunt subscriptions can be pounds 1,500 with leading hunts such as The Quorn, they can be as low as pounds 20 with some of the Welsh hunts.The principal expense for hunt members is the upkeep of their horse.About 16,000 rural jobs depend directly on hunting, the Countryside Alliance says.. Only about 50,000 of them were in scarlet coats on horseback – the rest were foot-followers.There are 187 packs of foxhounds in England and Wales, with a further nine in Scotland, and there are 103 packs of harriers, beagles and basset hounds, which hunt the hare, the last two in hunts on foot. Among Labour supporters, as might be expected, the opposition is much higher, with 82 per cent against and only 5 per cent in favour. More people follow hunts on foot than ride to hounds, although it is the riders who have always presented the hunt’s principal image.
According to the Standing Conference on Countryside Sports, 215,500 people followed hunts in 1997. POLLING DATA from MORI published yesterday gives the lie to the belief that most Tories are natural hunt supporters. Research done in April reveals that 57 per cent of Tories are against hunting, with only 17 per cent in favour.

I was flabbergasted,” he said.After establishing his ownership of the Volkswagen Golf, Lord Dholakia informed the officers that they had made him late for a talk he was giving on race relations at a police training college in Bedfordshire He said he was promptly given a police escort.. “The first thing I was asked was where did I get the car from. The research is particularly critical of the Bar Council and the Law Society for failing to “grasp the issues of race relations”.The report notes that 70 per cent of white legal trainees found satisfactory jobs in 1998, compared with only 14 per cent of racial minority students.Lord Dholakia said: “There is no doubt that a number of criminal justice agencies have moved considerably forward but there are concerns over how far policies are translated into practical implementation.”The peer revealed that he had experienced discriminatory treatment at the hands of police, when pulled over while driving. “When are we going to see some role models for young black people in this country?” he asked. Lord Dholakia referred to Nacro research, which is to be published at the conference, which will showwidespread race discrimination in the criminal justice system.