Hear All Sides: Hunting

Where were all these anti-voters when thousands of healthy animals were being slaughtered on the say-so of a Government which does not know what day it is.

I am an animal lover. I subscribe to stop cruelty, but I do think this proposed ban on fox hunting is 70 per cent them and us.

If hunting is banned we will have to see a lot of foxes, plus cats and dogs, become victims of snares and poison, put down by farmers protecting their livestock.

Why, if we want to ban cruelty, are these people not against fishing, when fish are being dragged through the water with hooks in their mouths, or jockeys in a horse race belting their horses?

I have no wish to see hunting banned.

Let the people who suffer from the fox decide, not the class-hatred mob. - F Wealands, Darlington.

I DEPLORE fox hunting, but equally the fact that it has become such an obsession of animal rights' campaigners.

Does fox hunting, however obnoxious, involve the deaths of millions of innocent creatures after their prolonged subjection to intense cruelty? No, it does not, but factory farming and so-called scientific research (vivisection) do, not forgetting the mass destruction of wildlife habitat.

Those are the real challenges - not the soft target of fox hunting. - Tony Kelly, Crook.

SHOULD fox hunting with hounds be banned in due course by the elected House? I have two suggestions.

Firstly, the people who lost their livelihoods could pursue careers in the NHS, where nurses are in short supply.

Secondly, the people who participate in this hobby could fill in their obvious abundance of spare time by becoming hospital volunteers.

Not only would the NHS benefit, but it might just have the consequence of bringing out the more caring, humane element of these people's personalities which they probably never even realised they had the fortune to possess. - JA Hustwith, Thirsk.

THE EURO

MURIEL Green is wrong when she states that the euro would be good for Britain and we must join or face more job losses and isolation (HAS, Mar 21).

The British economy as a whole is thriving outside the eurozone. We have half the eurozone rate of unemployment and the fastest growth of any major world economy. We have the lowest inflation in the EU and the highest take-home pay of any EU country except Luxembourg. We also attract more inward investment than France and Germany combined. The quickest way to ruin this enviable record would be to give up control over our economy by giving up the pound.

In Britain, we can have the best of both worlds. We can use the euro on holiday and sometimes on our own high street, but we can also keep control of our economy.

The British economy is different to that of the eurozone countries. We have far stronger trading and investment links outside the eurozone and this means that interest rates set by the European Central Bank would not take into account links outside the eurozone and this means that interest rates set by the ECB would not be right for the UK. - John Elliott Chairman, Business for Sterling North East.

I SUSPECT Anne Telford's eulogy (HAS, Mar 25) to the euro is by no means as nave and simplistic as she would have us believe. Rather, I detect the deadhand and deadhead of the New Labour spin machine.

To project the single currency as merely an economic option, rather than its true purpose as a political strait jacket, is an insult to the intelligence of the vast majority of our people.

If Britain was bounced into the euro due to lies and misrepresentation of the essential facts, it would be in line with the relentless campaign of misrepresentation that has taken place since Edward Heath's first act of treachery in 1972 (joining the Common Market).

Through the referendum of 1975 and the five subsequent treaties, we have been brought to the point of almost total subservience to Brussels, as a result of cowardly and, at times, knowingly treasonable actions by governments of both complexions. Acceptance of the single currency would be the final act of surrender.

Not only should we say a firm no to the euro in the forthcoming referendum, but the process of withdrawal of our membership of the malignant institution known as the EU should begin without delay. - Dave Pascoe, Press Officer, UK Independence Party, Teesside Branch.

SADDAM HUSSEIN

IT is reported that Secretary of Defence Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons Defence Select Committee that Britain would be ready and willing to launch a nuclear attack on Iraq if President Saddam Hussein was deemed to be threatening with his alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. This would not be done in my name!

Unless Iraq was to launch an attack on Britain which seems exceedingly unlikely - a military attack of any kind on Iraq would be strictly illegal, as well as being immoral and counterproductive.

But to launch a nuclear attack against a clearly non-nuclear country that has not first attacked us would be, legally and morally, absolutely beyond the pale.

There is no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. We are being prepared for war on Iraq for quite different reasons, but the effects of such a war on innocent civilians there would vastly exceed the catastrophe at the World Trade Centre.

Our present Government, mesmerised by the United States, is propelling us into exceedingly dangerous waters. It is time to stop this nonsense before it is too late. - Leslie J Hale, Bedale.