David Cameron has given his strongest indication yet that he would vote for a repeal of the ban on fox hunting, claiming that it had "made a mockery of the law".
The Conservatives have made no secret of the fact that they plan to allow a free vote on the issue if they win the next election. However, the Tory leader has been quiet on the subject as it is feared his support for hunting will play badly with metropolitan voters.
He said: "We will have a free vote in a new Parliament on whether to repeal the hunting ban.
"My own view is the hunting ban is a bad piece of legislation, it hasn't worked, it has made a mockery of the law, a lot of time was wasted on it, and I think we would be better off without it. That gives you a clue to how I will vote."
Mr Cameron was speaking at the Woodstock Literary Festival in Oxfordshire, where he was interviewed by Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of Government at Oxford University and the Tory leader's former tutor at Brasenose College.
He told the audience that he and his wife, Samantha, were hoping to have another child. Asked what he would do about Britain's rising population, he laughed: "I don't have any plans to reduce the population of Britain. I would quite like to add to it, possibly by one, at some stage in the future."
Mr Cameron made the surprising disclosure that the two greatest literary influences on his political career were socialists – George Orwell and Tony Benn.
"Obviously I read great tomes that have influenced other Conservatives. But the two books that particularly influenced me were actually written by Labour supporters," he said.
"One was 1984, and actually all the writings of George Orwell. He wrote brilliantly about the follies of the Left when taken to extremes.
"The other was Tony Benn's book, Arguments for Democracy, a very powerful book which makes the important point that we vest power in people who are elected and that we can get rid of, rather than those we can't.
"So what books made me a Conservative? One by Tony Benn and one by George Orwell."
Critics say the 'Big Brother' society envisioned by Orwell has become reality under the current government.
If he wins the next election, Mr Cameron said his own government would bring a new era of transparency to British politics.
"What the MPs' expenses sag has taught us is the importance of transparency of information," he said. "Transparency could be as powerful a Conservative idea as privatisation was."
Taking questions from the audience, Mr Cameron was asked whether he preferred facing Gordon Brown or Tony Blair at Prime Minister's Questions. He chose the latter on the basis that "the quality of jokes was better under Blair".
