Kiss and make up?

Tweet I noted a few days ago that the local Tory campaign had received a significant donation from the fourth Baron Daresbury. What I hadn't realised at the time was that this seems to mark something of a reconciliation between his lordship and the local Tory candidate.

In 2004, the two men had a bit of a spat over correspondence between their respective organisations which became unintentionally public, as this report from the Sunday Times notes.

As then-Chair of the Association of Masters of Foxhounds, the Baron wrote to masters and chairs of hunts berating landowners for not doing enough to help foxes breed, leading to a danger that there would be "a shortage of foxes" to hunt.

The Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance replied in a somewhat stroppy e-mail to the effect that this was rather undermining the case for fox-hunting, which publicly at least was claimed to about pest control. Breeding pests in order to control them by hunting might look 'suspicious', he said.

Indeed. Not to say downright dishonest. But clearly the two men have now kissed and made up.