From: Tracy Holt, address supplied.
Sir, – I ask your readers to consider the following:
• Health spending on illness solely related to diet exceeds £8bn – debating time by MPs: zero.
• TB in cattle is reaching epidemic proportions – debating time by MPs: zero.
• Funding for regen
erating dying villages is suspended by Government – debating time by MPs: zero.
• Common Agricultural Policy reform on a knife-edge with real potential for collapse of world trade talks – debating time by MPs: zero.
• The Prime Minister's Rural Advocate reports that most government departments are harming rural development through neglect – debating time by MPs: zero.
• Only two per cent of the population say the Government should treat hunting as a priority and 59 per cent say hunting should be allowed to continue – debating time by MPs dedicated to banning hunting: over 85 hours in the past year plus two public inquiries. This is more than twice the effort and time spent on BSE, foot-and-mouth and all other rural issues combined.
This is the politics of dictatorship; it is the prejudice of mediocrity.
The banning of hunting has become a totemic issue for many Labour MPs – a hollow wooden icon that they worship in the absence of a real faith in something meaningful.
From: SE Farmer, Crook Tree Farm, Hatfield, Doncaster.
Sir, – So the Government has seen fit to give priority time to a third reading of the bill to ban foxhunting.
This when precisely two per cent of the population see this as an appropriate use of parliamentary time. But Blair is under pressure and there are back-benchers to placate, so the poor old fox is the political football again.
And as for regional devolution, before we vote we need to consider just two things. Think of one great achievement closely associated with the activities of John Prescott. If stumped, do we think regional devolution will be his first huge success?
