After falling victim to past embarrassments, it really should have known better. But the BBC suffered fresh ignominy yesterday after admitting that a radio poll had been hijacked by hunt supporters.

Ed Stourton, one of the presenters of the Radio 4 Today programme, broke the news to listeners over breakfast with the results of a vote to find the law that the programme’s audience would most like to scrap.

More than half the votes cast were to abolish the Hunting Act, which outlawed hunting with hounds two years ago. With the lugubrious sigh that is his trademark, Stourton told his audience of 6.5 million of “suspicions that there was an organised campaign at work”. The Countryside Alliance later cheerfully confirmed that it had encouraged members to take part.

For the venerable Today programme, this was not just a setback but a repeat offence.

Two years ago another of its polls, this time to nominate a Private Member’s Bill, had early-morning listeners choking on their marmalade after it came out in favour of a law allowing householders to shoot burglars without retribution.

On that occasion, the nominating listener clearly stated that, if property owners discovered a burglary in progress, they should have the right to assume they were in mortal danger and “act accordingly”. Stephen Pound, a Labour MP who had agreed to introduce the winning Bill in the Commons, cursed the result on air.

Undaunted by past calamities, Today pressed ahead with another such exercise, this time by seeking Bills to repeal rather than enact.

Early on there were nagging signs that politicians had spied another bandwagon upon which to leap. Alex Salmond, the Scottish Nationalist leader, proposed the scrapping of the Act of Union; Daniel Hannan, a Tory MEP, urged abolition of the European Communities Act 1972; and Walter Wolfgang, 83, the activist ejected from a Labour conference for heckling, condemned the Terrorism Act 2005 under which he had found himself detained.

In short, it was a predictable cast advocating causes with which they were already associated.

So when the Hunting Act was nominated for abolition by Jim Barrington, a one-time anti-hunting campaigner who switched sides, it was really no surprise.

Simon Hart, the chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, admitted to trying to orchestrate the result. “Of course, the alliance has been encouraging its supporters to take part. It would be strange if we did not support the repeal of the Hunting Act,” he said.

“Claims of vote rigging are, however, nothing but sour grapes. The vote was limited to one vote per person.”

CAN WE FIX IT?

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