Fox hunting isn’t about keeping numbers down (From Worcester News)

Fox hunting isn’t about keeping numbers down

12:40pm Friday 6th January 2012 in Read

SIR – I am sure many other people will have been disappointed that the Worcester News gave a twopage spread to idealised pictures of fox hunting (December 27).

For two decades, opinion polls have consistently shown that just under 80 per cent of people find this activity abhorrent.

It is so sad that, with Christmas barely over, these class-obsessed fools can only think about killing animals.

Remember all the scare stories when the Bill to abolish fox hunting was going through: there would be mass unemployment in the countryside; the rural economy would collapse and many dogs would have to be put down.

None of this happened, although it would be dreadful to think that the British rural economy depended on this barbaric practice.

These county-set snobs can still dress up and ride through villages reminding locals that they are the bosses and masters.

Locals, of course, don’t get to dress up on a horse, they are there just to look after the dogs and horses and clear up after them.

These snobs can legally follow a scent but – and this is the central point – that is not enough for them as what they really want is to see a fox torn apart.

These county-set buffoons want to reverse the ban only because they get so much pleasure from actually seeing an animal torn apart, which is precisely what the ban is designed to stop.

It is nothing to do with keeping the fox population down as farmers can still legally shoot foxes if they are harming farm animals.

Or is it just about these upper class people wanting to maintain their social class position in the countryside?

I know many decent members of the Conservative party who abhor fox hunting but are too afraid to say so for fear of upsetting their paymasters on their big estates.

ALAN AMOS
City councillor for Warndon, county councillor for Gorse Hill and Warndon