Cumbrian pro-hunt campaigners threw a hard boiled egg at the Deputy Prime Minister’s car today. John Prescott was attending a meeting in Kendal to support the proposed North West Regional Assembly.

It isn't the first time Cumbria hunt fanatics have given Cumbrian people a bad name. In August 2002 Tony Blair had a family holiday in the county in order to help promote tourism in Cumbria in the wake of the foot-and-mouth outbreak. What should have been a great boost to local businesses was ruined by 150 jeering and shouting hunt fanatics who greeted Mr Blair's arrival at UCB Films in Wigton to open a new research and development centre.

Amongst those present was Carole Smith, whose partner Les Hudson is kennel huntsman to the Cumberland Foxhounds, who said of Tony Blair: "a bloody coward, wouldn't even look at us". She wore a T-shirt featuring Tanner, a big hound with appealing eyes and claimed: "I'm so passionate I would go to prison rather than let Tony Blair shoot him or dispose of him when he turns us all into criminals." Of course Tanner, yes the one with appealing eyes, will be shot, presumably by Ms Smith's partner, when he gets too old for hunting at six years old like all hounds.