People have freedom of choice, given by God. If people decide to do barbaric acts in the name of anything, it is their choice. Don't blame God.
The fox inflicts a lot of pain and suffering on wildlife, poultry and animals. It is classed as vermin because it destroys food, not just to eat, but in many cases for the sake of killing, leaving its victims lying there, headless. I am sure poultry feel panic when they are being picked off, one by one.
He talks about a fox being chased for hours to be ripped apart, which is absolute rubbish. Obviously, he has never watched a hunt.
I have watched quite a lot, and never witnessed anything that he describes. This is a typical letter from a person who doesn't understand what has to be done in the countryside and doesn't understand country people. A case of someone trying to tell country people how to manage the countryside, when they have done it magnificently for centuries. Why change something that has worked so well for all this time?
The fox inflicts a lot of cruelty in the countryside, and whatever Mr Pickard says, hunting is the most humane and natural way of control and not only by a wealthy minority.
How much cruelty has Tony Blair inflicted both on animals, both in the foot-and-mouth obscenity and on people in the illegal war he has conducted with regard to Iraq?
From: Coun Frank R McManus, Locksley House, Longfield Road, Todmorden.
OF course I follow the "party line" on hunting as John Grice claimed (Letters, August 31), for it is to allow Parliament to determine the matter by free vote as pledged in 1997 and 2001.
But I don't "just follow it", as he thinks, for I have my reasons. Since the number of foxes in a given rural habitat is limited by the availability of food, the killing of an adult fox enables a cub to reach maturity.
The hunt, therefore, does not reduce the number of foxes in the specified area, but merely their average age. As a method of fox-control, it is futile.
Phyllis Capstick pointed out (August 30) that foxes harm ground-nesting birds, poultry, sheep and lambs. I think they could be eradicated, except for zoo animals. But it is not unknown for humans to kill poultry and lambs and eat them.
From: Roger M Dobson, Ash Street, Crosshills.
I AM neither fully in favour nor fully against hunting with dogs as a sport, but I have been a lover of the countryside and its many traditions all my life.
The Prime Minister must have suicidal tendencies towards his political career if he intends pushing an anti-hunting law through Parliament, because more than 50 per cent of the electorate are in favour of hunting.
To my mind, he is only bringing the Bill in to appease his party's Left-wingers.
Again, if brought in, an anti-hunting Bill would be as unenforcable as the one regarding driving and using a mobile phone.
From: Karen Robinson, Silsden.
NOW we know. The hunting community is now having to wage war on terrorism. This may seem ridiculous, but the dictionary definition of terrorism is along the lines of "government by fear or the attempt to gain one's political aims by fear".
This Government is forcing the hunting community to live in fear. I am kennel-huntsman to a pack of beagles. We hunt the hare and unlike those who
hunt foxes, don't even get a two-year period to adjust. No home, no wage, and fearful of the future.
But it isn't just me that is affected. I have three sons. The eldest started this term at secondary school, new friends, new ideas and a new found keenness to succeed. His reaction to the ban was a sleepless night fearful for the loss of everything; he sees his life falling apart.
My middle son, still at primary school, says losing his friends is his main fear, but he loves the beagles and asked me not to destroy them, especially the young hounds that he spends hours with chasing around the garden.
My youngest son is three. He will ask where his beagles are, as he accompanies me as I do my work. Unfortunately, due to the area the kennels are in, we have no hope to buy a home, let alone rent one.
So the only option we have is to move away, losing everything. We are a family living in fear.
From: Peter H Jesty, Warwick Lodge, Towton, Tadcaster.
SO there is to be another attempt to create a law forbidding the hunting of foxes with hounds – why?
The only logical reason must be to stop cruelty to foxes; but if the current legislation on cruelty to animals is not sufficient, then why not just amend it?
Probably because the Burns Inquiry showed that, if the numbers of foxes are to be controlled, hunting them with hounds is actually a natural and humane way to do it; as at least one past chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports has also discovered independently.
However, when one listens to the proponents of the new Bill, it is clear that they do not wish to use evidence to spoil a good prejudice. They say that hunting foxes with hounds is anachronistic – why? Is it any more anachronistic than not having a written constitution that defends the rights of individuals and minorities in law, as in other developed countries?
Actually, there seems to be little point in trying to have a logical discussion with those MPs who wish to impose their will on the rest of us with all the temporary power that they wield.
Their prejudice cannot even be explained in terms of the class struggle, which splits the classes in a horizontal manner; this Bill will split them vertically.
I note, with more than a little concern, that the vitriol they use is analogous to that used by the BNP against immigrants, or even by the Nazis against the Jews, with a similar lack of logic. I ask again – why?
From: William B Thompson, Park House Green, Harrogate.
PHYLLIS Capstick (Letters, September 11), complains that foxes are vicious and violent killers, which must be controlled. Apparently her father lost some chickens to a fox.
Did he not think of keeping a sound henhouse with a closed door? Foxes will not break in.
An ordinary domestic moggy will do exactly the same thing if allowed into an aviary of cagebirds.
There is a perfectly reasonable cause for this behaviour of cats and foxes, which would take too long to explain here.
A large number of folk ride, who have nothing to do with hunting. Do you suppose they will stop needing facilities for their horses if hunting was banned?
Also if the hunts were to change to drag hunting, what would be lost?
I note from TV reports that the gang outside Tony Blair's house the other day were brandishing signs saying "59 per cent of people support hunting".
This claim is untrue and instruction has been given by the Advertising Standards Authority that it is not to be repeated. Yet another example of bending the facts by the hunters.
From: B Robinson, Midland Terrace, Hellifield, near Skipton.
TONY Blair is always on about fighting terrorists. Does he ever stop to think what creates terrorists?
It is the type of action he is taking over the hunting Bill. He is ignoring the evidence of the Burns Inquiry, and others, by casting common sense to the wind and forcing the Bill through Parliament just for sheer spite.
He is trying to knock the life out of the countryside because it is a minority which he does not understand.
If civil war breaks out over this, anti-hunt campaigners like Tony Banks, Gerald Kaufman, Michael Foster, Gordon Prentice and others will have only themselves to blame.
From: WH Doe, St Albans Road, Arnold, Nottingham.
WHY has no one in the hunting fraternity spoken out and claimed that the forthcoming ban on hunting is in breach of the hunt's human rights and their right to roam, both so beloved by Labour's politically-correct supporters?

Changing face of towns
From: Martin Drake, Prospective parliamentary candidate (Conservative), Doncaster North, Ladythorpe, Fenwick, Doncaster.
RECENT reports that British towns are losing their character and individuality should give us cause for concern.
When I walk through Doncaster I want to see the vibrancy and flair that local traditions bring to this market town. I do not want a clone town which resembles every other in the country. As chain store after chain store opens, family businesses close. As time goes by this tears apart the social fabric of the town. The main reason that small businesses are closing though is not competition from rivals but stress of bureaucracy.
Years ago running a family firm was about hard work and sacrifice, but the benefits of your own work were testament to a job well done. Now after a hard days work comes the paperwork, the form filling, the million and one rules that sap your energy and whittle the bank balance.
Not for one minute do I recommend that we should relax health and safety laws, but should we persecute these small businesses in other ways? Larger firms have to employ in-house solicitors to cope with all the complex business regulations. They are a luxury that a family firm can ill afford.
Is it any wonder few new high street shops are taken over by a young entrepreneur trying to make real a dream? We should promote a can-do society not one that is held back by rules and regulations.
Vital marina
From: RGF Zerny, Stratton House, South Side, Kilham, Driffield.
ONCE again, it seems that the Harbour Commissioners are trying to scupper the (revised) Bridlington Marina project. As a native of East Yorkshire who knows Bridlington well, may I urge you through your columns to do all you can to express the huge need that exists for this project. The failed project of last year was perhaps too big and vague in some aspects, but the revised one is both sensible and practical.
Bridlington needs a marina, because the town is decaying and declining, slowly but surely. You cannot fail to see boarded up premises in prime locations, and a massive injection of capital investment is needed in the town to revitalise it. It is, indeed, essential.
Too simple
From: Tim Mickleburgh, Littlefield Lane, Grimsby.
EDWARD Moss is too simplistic in his analysis of inheritance tax (Letters, September 9). For much wealth is simply passed on from generation to generation, and isn't the result of the heir gaining money through honest labour.
What's more in recent years, the sharp rise in property prices has given people lucky enough to own their own home extra assets without any effort whatsoever.
I find it strange that those who once advocated the Thatcherite policy of individuals standing on their own two feet are quite happy to support the contrary idea of untaxed inheritance.
Nature's way
From: B Raw, Fernhall Close, Doncaster.
IN response to the letter headed "Hawk threat" from Charles Coates (September 10), I would like to ask him to consider how many people in his village, himself included, own a cat. Need I say more on that subject?
I too feed birds in my garden, and have done so for many years. It was about 12 years ago that I first noticed a sparrowhawk in the neighbourhood, and my first thought was how wonderful.
In that time, I have only seen the tell-tale ring of feathers, plucked from some unlucky bird, which is the sparrowhawk's trade-mark, on two occasions. That doesn't sound like wholesale slaughter.
As for "scaring off, and killing off our garden birds", I can tell Mr Coates, that though a sparrowhawk often flies through my garden, the birds only stay away from the feeders for the duration of its visit before returning to feed once more. I would much rather have the occasional bird taken by a natural predator that kills to live, than many thousands taken by over-fed felines that kill for the hell of it.
I wonder, has Mr Coates never heard the saying "nature, red in tooth and claw?"

MPs to have better chance of checking EU laws
From: Ged Robinson, Dulverton Green, Leeds.
DIGBY Jones, the director-general of the Confederation of Britain Industry (CBI), criticised MPs for being "asleep on the job" in their scrutiny of EU legislation, claiming that they "operate in a parliamentary culture where EU laws do not appear on the radar early enough".
The CBI should therefore welcome the new EU constitutional treaty. As part of its provisions, the treaty lists proposals to help national parliaments to scrutinise EU activity better. It requires that all EU consultation documents and draft legislation be sent to national parliaments at the same time as they are sent to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
This process will give MPs in Westminster enough time to scrutinise their contents and mandate British ministers accordingly, increasing openness, transparency and accountability as a result.
Cryer wrong to be ashamed of democratic votes
From: Colin Smales, The Avenue, Harrogate.
I FEEL very strongly about the article (September 11) referring to MP Ann Cryer's "shame" about people in her town of Keighley exercising their democratic right to vote for whomsoever they please.
How would she feel some time in the future, when we do not have this pseudo-socialist majority in Parliament, if someone expresses shame that voters have elected a socialist councillor in the face of the majority who have a different inclination?
This country is supposed to be a democracy and the BNP is a legitimate political party. Ann Cryer would like to be part of a government such as that which ruled Russia for the best part of 90 years in which elections were only used to rubber stamp the ruling party's authority.
Socialist dogma and political correctness are the enemies of democracy in this country, not the BNP. No one, whomsoever they have voted for, should have to feel ashamed because of the choice they have made.
The day that does happen is the day when people will disappear from the streets never to be seen again because of the way they voted. That this does not happen here is very much more important than which party, at any particular time, has a majority in Parliament.
Points
Not political, but puerile
From: A Cockroft, Plantation Avenue, Temple Newsam, Leeds.
EACH Monday I am invited in the Yorkshire Post to read Austin Mitchell writing on politics the following day, and week in and week out I search in vain for this article.
I do see a right hand column with his name appended, but any resemblance to politics would require a far greater imagination than mine. Instead I see an article of puerile twaddle.
The following day I read the political article by Bernard Ingham (I don't agree with his politics by the way) and my faith in the Post's choice of political writers is restored.
Thank goodness Austin Mitchell doesn't represent me as an MP. I have a down to earth Yorkshire man in George Mudie in my corner.
Give cricketers another season
From: Brian Rimmer, Wharfedale Crescent, Garforth, Leeds.
WHILE one appreciates Les Brotherton's letter of September 13 regarding Yorkshire cricket – I am even in the photo on the back row – we need one further vital answer.
If it is his contention that it is time for most of the staff to say goodbye, by whom are they to be replaced?
Let's give them another season, and surely one cannot blame the Yorkshire Post's cricket correspondent Chris Waters for being optimistic after day one?