Fox hunting and EVEL: who has the whip hand?
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Tomorrow's vote on whether or not to relax the hunting ban has been postponed.
Who can remember those far gone days of the general election campaign when the Conservatives warned that putting Ed Miliband in Downing Street would see the SNP calling the shots?
Today, the Conservative government has decided to scrap Wednesday's vote to relax the hunting ban in England and Wales after the SNP said its 56 MPs would vote against a government move to bring the law in line with the law in Scotland.
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said one of the reasons why her MPs would vote on a law that doesn't apply in Scotland was because the prime minister was making Scottish MPs "second-class citizens" in the House of Commons through his "English votes for English laws" (EVEL) proposal.
It's been suggested the government may now tighten up restrictions on Scottish MPs voting on matters in England and Wales before holding a vote on hunting regulations.
But as my colleague Mark D'Arcy explains, external, the current EVEL proposals would still allow the SNP to vote on changes to hunting laws if they are enacted by secondary legislation.
Wednesday's vote would have thrown up some interesting alliances. In the last parliament, Plaid Cymru and the SNP were treated as a single parliamentary group at Westminster, but Plaid's three MPs were expected to vote with Tory MPs to relax the ban.
Plaid parliamentary leader, Jonathan Edwards, told me: "It is a free vote for Plaid Cymru MPs and I have to make a decision when votes are presented to the House of Commons how I believe it would be better for me to represent my constituents in those circumstances.
"With this particular issue my position my position is that it would improve livestock protection for the farming community and the farming community is obviously a key stakeholder in my constituency."
The free vote may owe something to hunting being an issue of conscience, although it may owe something to party management too: several Plaid Cymru AMs are prominent opponents of fox hunting.