JON Burgess says that "the majority of vets supports a continuation of hunting with hounds".
I assume he was referring to a poll of vets conducted in 2001 during which vets were telephoned and asked to take part in an interview on hunting.
The same poll that was condemned by Professor Nancarrow of Bristol Business School, Marketing Research as "inconsistent and inconclusive".
The poll was in effect a mess. Among the many reasons for this mess was that large number of those contacted refused to take part.
This had the effect of making the poll self-selecting (i.e. mostly those with an interest took part) which, in turn affected the randomness of the sample.
This was compounded by the fact that rural vets were questioned differently from urban vets, and to cap it all, part-way through the poll, questions were changed or added.
This then, was hardly "research" to be relied upon and, unsurprisingly, produced conflicting and meaningless results.
MAURICE BRETT,
Bromsgrove.
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