A RECENT article about the CLA Game Fair at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire by Douglas Batchelor, chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports, lays bare the motivation behind the Hunting Act.

Mr Batchelor's article is a diatribe against the people at the game fair and he makes no attempt to conceal his hatred for them. He rails against the fact that they are a minority, their accents, their clothing, and the Government subsidies they receive for nature conservation.

Mr Batchelor has already explicitly rejected the idea of legislation targeted specifically against cruelty to animals on the grounds that it would mean people who were not being cruel could not be prosecuted. One wonders why he should want such people to be criminalised, and this article amply answers that question. Petty snide bigoted hatred for a minority.

He goes on to gloat that the Hunting Act is making it hard-to-impossible for hunts to operate economically.

It's worth pointing out that this is partly why the law is so woolly and badly drafted, making it impossible to tell if hunts are breaking the law. The vast majority of the hunts are acting legally, but nonetheless the law places considerable pressure on them.

This is exactly what Mr Batchelor and his Labour friends wanted because this law is not an attack on cruelty but an attack on organisations and individuals from a social minority that they despise.

It's time to repeal the Hunting Act and replace it with a liberal, well-drafted law against animal cruelty.

Giles Bradshaw

Rose Ash