IT was one of those laugh-out-loud moments, all the more memorable because I was stuck in a traffic jam on the M25 at the time, which is not usually the sort of situation that puts me in a good mood.

I was listening to Jonathan Ross's Saturday morning radio show, and Wossy (as he's known in the biz) was nattering on in his tongue-in-cheek way about the fox hunting debate when he suggested that instead of tearing exhausted little ginger animals to bits, maybe the prey ought to be paedophiles instead, "and we could get people from council estates to run 'em down".

Now I know it wasn't even remotely politically correct, but it was amusing at the time in a Homer Simpson "It's funny 'cos it's true" kind of way. Don't get me wrong. Not all perv bashers live on council estates. In fact, my very own mum and dad live in a council flat in one of the roughest parts of a northern town, and more decent, law-abiding folk you're hardly likely to meet.

But what the fearless presenter had touched upon was the way that people who make up what used to be known as the working classes often like to see themselves as moral guardians, even if sometimes it means confusing a paediatrician with an abuser, or (as happened here in Bournemouth) attacking and driving an entirely innocent couple from their home.

Neither side in the newly-declared class war has a monopoly on prejudice. Yet strangely, those who don't like fox hunting because they simply don't like posh people, often quite like looking round aristocratic estates.

So (while we are laying on the irony) maybe hunting could become another one of the attractions attached to a day out at some toff's stately pile - and if the climax featured a man in mucky raincoat being torn limb from limb by a pack of baying hounds, well, that should help save Great Aunt Lucinda's old Gainsborough from the tax man, shouldn't it?.

And while we're being ironic, maybe the country types could bring back some of the other quaint old traditions. Take granny along to Trumpington Manor, for example, and for a modest fee you could strap her into a ducking stool, plunge her in the duck pond and see if she's a witch.

Bonfire night would surely go with even more of a bang with a real human sacrifice instead of a bundle of rags - the Wicker Man could be recreated all over the country. Chucking eggs at a spotty boy in baseball cap and trainers tucked in his socks locked in the stocks would work much more effectively than some silly anti-social behaviour order.

And before you ask, no, I haven't had a sneaky peek at the Tory manifesto for the next election - nor New Labour's battle plans for a third term.

First published: September 28