The letter sent to the animal rights campaign was carefully worded but left no doubt about Tony Blair’s view. “Labour,” it stated, “is committed to seeing a reduction and the eventual end of animal experiments.”

That letter was sent in the mid-1990s to an organisation called Plan 2000, which campaigned for an end to vivisection. It was written “on behalf of Tony Blair” by Elliot Morley, then his spokesman on animal welfare.

Last week, as the government proclaimed that it was getting tough on extremists who terrorise scientists involved in animal testing, the letter was passed to The Sunday Times by the former head of Plan 2000 as evidence of Labour’s conflicting signals over animal rights.

For Blair was far from the only figure to show support for the animal rights campaign. Several Labour figures who later went on to hold ministerial posts put their name to Plan 2000 — including David Blunkett, the home secretary who, in the opinion of some, has done too little, too late to protect research scientists involved in animal testing from persistent threats and attacks.

In offering his support to Plan 2000, Blunkett wrote: “I am delighted to support the campaign for finding radical and innovative ways of saving human life . . . without harm or hurt to others.” He has also been a patron of the Humane Research Trust, another group that campaigns to end the use of animals in medical research.

Some senior Labour MPs were even more forthright in their comments to Plan 2000. Nick Brown, who later became agriculture minister, insisted: “I am totally opposed to animal experiments.”

These were the private views of Labour’s leading figures. Yet last week, in the wake of recent violent attacks by animal extremists, the government was taking a very different line, at least in public. It was proclaiming that animal testing has “helped save hundreds of millions of lives” and that action was needed to prevent extremists terrorising scientists and closing laboratories.

The government made much of proposals for “co-ordination” of policing and their determination to “bring to justice those responsible” for harassing researchers and their families. Fine words. But what concrete new measures was it pursuing? Blunkett announced plans to give the police powers to arrest activists protesting outside the homes of laboratory staff, and to ban them from the area for three months.

His department also said that a police unit within the National Crime Squad was being “created to target leading organisers of violent animal rights protest”.

Yet the measures to arrest protesters do little more than refine existing legislation. Under laws introduced in January police already have the power to move even the smallest of protest groups away from the homes of targets.

A leak to the press last week was also purported to reveal another new move: that Anton Setchell, an acting assistant chief constable, is to oversee a national crackdown on animal rights extremists. But Setchell already oversees several units aimed at animal rights extremists. One has been running since March, one for about three years, and a third since April 2000.

TO the victims of the extremists, the government’s measures were once again disappointing. Some believe that Labour, while trying to appear tough on extremists, has a latent “animal tendency”. They suspect it is reluctant to take a strong stand against violent extremists for fear of alienating large swathes of moderate campaigners. Yet it is Labour’s desire to play to both sides of the argument that has created the problem.

To the animal rights activists, Labour offered a new hope. In a 1996 paper entitled New Labour, New Life For Animals, it promised to “support a royal commission to review the effectiveness and justification of animal experiments, and to examine alternatives”.

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