LONDON -- Forget sagging stock markets and omens of world recession. Forget global warming and U.S. President George W. Bush's rejection of the Kyoto treaty on carbon emissions. Forget, even, the foot-and-mouth disease that is currently paralyzing Britain's farming and tourist industries and has caused a one-month delay in the British General Election.

The really central, burning issue in Britain today is none of these things. It is fox-hunting. Should it be banned or permitted? Or, to be more precise, should the hunting of foxes in the time-honored way, with baying hounds, red-coated huntsmen and a field of mounted followers, careering across field, hedge and ditch in pursuit of one brown-furred mammal (and predator), be outlawed?

The issue is seen not just as a simple restraint on a sport or practice that some find barbaric. Fox-hunting is woven into British life, culture and history in a way that almost nothing else is. It has long been seen as the quintessential English pastime, with hunting heroes and their exploits , like John Peel, Jorrocks and many more, embedded in British literature and folklore.