Letter: Puritans in pursuit of fox-hunters

James Scott
Tuesday 17 June 1997 18:02 EDT
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Sir: Polly Toynbee has got it wrong about fox-hunting. Fishing is not the equivalent working class bloodsport. It is the baiting of badgers, bulls or bears, and dog and cock-fighting, and they have been banned for years, probably because, unlike fox-hunting, they have not had influential friends to defend them.

Some intensive farming practices are indeed cruel, but what justification is that for savaging live foxes to death?

If a thing is wrong, it's wrong, and I hope Parliament ignores Ms Toynbee's red herring and proscribes this ugly relic whose surface glamour masks its vicious reality.

JAMES SCOTT

Milton Keynes

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