Every Monday we feature a favourite Alex cartoon selected by our readers. This week’s offering is from 1998.

The Countryside Alliance is a body which is ostensibly dedicated to protecting rural rights and traditions. But, as it was founded in July 1997, a couple of months after Tony Blair’s New Labour government swept to power with a 177-seat majority and a manifesto pledge to permit a free vote on fox hunting in the House of Commons, there was a suspicion that the organisation might have had a more focused agenda.

A march was held in London in early 1998 as a general protest against the new administration and its perceived anti-rural bias. This provided a nice day out in London for a bunch of farmers, and, for all the country-dwelling bankers, a chance to pop into their club for dinner afterwards and spend the night in their London pied-à-terre. This event should not be confused with the second and bigger Countryside Alliance march which took place in 2002. The march referred to here is the first march, which appropriately enough happened on the First of March.

Reader Justin Petty, who chose the cartoon, says he went on a couple of hunts on a borrowed horse to “work out what all the fuss was about”, but never actually saw a fox. He took a copy of this cartoon along to the march and showed it to everyone he met there, who apparently thought it was “brilliant”.

Fox hunting is a contentious topic, on which North London arty types like us probably don’t see eye-to-eye with the average rustic Daily Telegraph reader. So we did this joke, which shirks the issue by seeming to discuss drag hunting, but actually being about silly social snobbery. Clive’s attitude sums up the banality of most people’s concerns: that they’re more worried about seeking acceptance from their peer group than addressing the issues of the day. And of course it reflects the odd attitude of the English towards money: that it’s alright to have it, as long as it doesn’t look like you value it or went to any particular effort to acquire it. The best manifestation of this is the studied shabbiness of the gentry, who don’t even bother to use their ancestral wealth to buy themselves a decent set of clothes.

The Countryside Alliance’s marches failed to influence government policy and, after a bit of legal jiggery-pokery to bypass the House of Lords, which constantly blocked the bill (the peers were no doubt partial to their country sports), the Hunting Act was finally passed and became law in 2005.

If you click on the strip above you can read the cartoon in its original 90s context

If you’ve got any suggestions for a favourite cartoon for future inclusion please email us. And do tell us if there’s a particular reason why it appealed to you.