Hunting vote a shot in the dark

WHAT absolute nonsense to suggest that the Prime Minister’s recent pledge to hold a vote on hunting is to “woo rural support” (Yorkshire Post, October 21).

Polling by leading research company Ipsos-MORI found that 71 per cent of people in rural communities back the ban on fox hunting, while 81 per cent think deer hunting should remain illegal and 84 per cent think the same of hare coursing and hare hunting. Bloodsports are not supported by rural communities by any stretch of the imagination.

That same polling shows a majority of Conservative supporters opposing hunting.

The grassroots Conservatives Against Fox Hunting group now has 23 Tory MPs signed up, and our analysis of the position of the House of Commons is clear – a vote on repeal in this parliament would most likely be lost.

I am sure your readers can think of a thousand and one things for the Prime Minister to be commenting on, over and above recreational animal cruelty.

Know the limits

From: Iain Morris, Caroline Street, Saltaire, Shipley.

WHEN I was a student on the post-graduate Certificate of Education course at Manchester Polytechnic in 1971/72, we were taught that one of the things which children need more than anything else are boundaries.

When a child can hit a teacher or tell a teacher where to get off, there are no boundaries.

Silence is golden

From: David J Whitehead, Sunnydale Crescent, Hinckley, Leicestershire.

HAVING read Ian McMillan’s column (Yorkshire Post, October 11), great friendship means you can sit in silence and neither of you feel embarrassed.