Blair in muddle on hunt ban vote

Tony Blair today plunged the Government into a new depth of muddle over hunting after Downing Street announced that the Prime Minister will tonight vote in favour of a total ban - but made clear he would prefer a compromise deal.

His spokesman said Mr Blair would join the overwhelming majority of Labour MPs who are set to throw their weight behind the outlawing of all forms of hunting with dogs. But at the same time the spokesman said he believed that it was "best if we can approach this issue in a way that achieves some sort of consensus and recognises there are different points of view".

The extraordinary two-way shuffle reinforced the suspicions of antihunt MPs that a sell-out is well under way.

It also humiliated Rural Affairs Minister Alun Michael, supposedly in charge of the hunting issue, who had said only hours before that MPs should vote according to their conscience and insisted that no one was planning a deal.

The Prime Minister faced mutiny from his Cabinet as well as his party on his return from a disheartening EU summit in Barcelona.

The latest trouble flared with a strong signal from International Development Secretary Clare Short that she would resign from the Cabinet if Britain joined military action against Iraq.

Ms Short's warning was the strongest sign yet of Cabinet dissent. But the rank and file MPs were also, even before today's prevarication from No 10, unhappy at the handling of the hunting issue.

The Left is also unhappy at the continuing rows between Mr Blair and the unions, which erupted again to overshadow the EU summit at the weekend.

Ms Short yesterday put the Prime Minister on notice that a large section of the party would not tolerate what she called "a blind military attack" to topple Saddam Hussein.

Speaking on the BBC's On The Record programme, she said she did not expect the Government to back a US-led attack on terms which she and others would find intolerable.

She did not believe that Mr Blair was going to do "the wrong thing". But she went on: "We have all got to have our bottom lines. That's about being a member of the Government."

More than 100 Labour MPs have signed a Commons motion warning against military strikes. It emerged over the weekend that even those more ready to contemplate an attack, among them Home Secretary David Blunkett, are worried that action could spark serious trouble among ethnic minorities in this country.

Before tonight's hunting debate, Mr Blair was scheduled to make a statement in the Commons on the summit at Barcelona, which achieved little progress in its stated aim of EU reform.

The Prime Minister let his own feelings show when he mockingly described the event as "a joy".

Tonight's vote on hunting will be followed by a debate in the Lords tomorrow where the peers look certain to line themselves up for a full-scale confrontation with the Commons. While the wish of the overwhelming majorityof Labour MPs to outlaw the activityis clear, it is equally evident that Mr Blair and key Cabinet members are desperate to avoid a collision not only with the upper house but with great swathes of the countryside on an issue which they believe is of infinitely less importance than health, education, crime, transport and the other problems besetting Britain.

Ministers hostile to a ban have noted the latest opinion polls which show that support for an outright legal curb is dwindling with the voters now almost evenly divided for and against.