Click here to listen to this debate online

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Members of the distinguished debating society, the Oxford Union, have come out against a ban on foxhunting.

On Thursday, the 175-year-old Oxford University society analysed the motion, "That this House would ban all foxhunting".

The guests included representatives from the League against Cruel Sports, the Hunt Saboteurs Association, and the Countryside Alliance - the first time the opposing groups have sat face to face with each other.

BBC News Online transmitted the entire debate live on the Internet in its first outside broadcast.

It was a serious yet good-humoured confrontation. Paul Davis from the Hunt Saboteurs Association said the issue was all about cruelty. He argued that there was no point in retaining foxhunting just because it was traditional, calling it a "desperate" argument.

"Just because we've been doing this for generations, that does not make it any better, it does not make it right.

"I will never forget the emotion of seeing a small animal chased over a long period and ripped apart for pleasure. I will never forget the whoops of exhilaration on the hunters faces."

Considerable applause

Television presenter Robin Page, host of the programme One Man and his Dog got the toughest reception of the evening, calling the topic a "trivial diversion of the real issues involving the environment".

He criticised the divisions between town and country dwellers, drawing hecklers when he lamented that he could not hear skylarks in June anymore.

Though he retorted with : "You're supposed to be interested in wildlife but you think it's funny you sad laughers" which earned considerable applause.

What helped to sway the debate was the final speech by philosopher Professor Roger Scruton.

The only speaker to say plainly that he enjoyed following foxhounds.

"I don't think there is anything wrong with this enjoyment. I have never seen the difference between keeping a cat to control mice and keeping a pack of hounds to control foxes."