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		Letter to the Editor Northamptonshire Chronicle - Tuesday, 12th October 2004 Dear Sir, I see that no fewer than three of your correspondents attacked my position on hunting on September 30th. I wonder if this is a record? Mr. Johnson cites misbehaviour by some demonstrators at the hunting demo in Parliament Square. I certainly do not condone individual acts of violence. It is clear that some demonstrators had a different agenda from the majority, and there may well have been some infiltrators bent on confrontation. But the fact remains that the great majority of demonstrators were peaceful, and the response of the Metropolitan Police was wholly disproportionate. Mr. Duley accuses me of double standards. Did I speak up for the miners during their confrontations with the police twenty years ago, he asks. No, I did not. Why not? Because the miners were seeking to subvert the national economy in their own narrow interests (and we see the final result only this week, with the once-feared NUM throwing in the towel and merging with a larger union). Hunt supporters are not trying to subvert the economy, or damage any other group in society. They are merely asking to be left alone to pursue the same country sports as their fathers and grandfathers before them. Why is it that every minority in this country seems to be sacrosanct, except rural people, who are fair game for the government? Mr. Conroy comes up with the old line about "people enjoying seeing blood flowing from wild animals torn apart by hounds". The truth is that most hunt followers never see the kill -- they are too far behind the pack. No one "enjoys seeing blood flow". It would be equally silly to say that Christians attend mass because of an unhealthy obsession with bread and wine. Let's say it again. A hunt ban will be bad for foxes, both individually (a fox culled by any other method is more likely to face a protracted and painful death) and for the species, both because other culling methods are indiscriminate and non-selective, and because, without hunting, landowners may well seek to eliminate foxes entirely, as vermin. With a hunting ban, foxes risk being shot, snared, trapped, poisoned and gassed to extinction. And of course a hunt ban will be bad for the environment, the countryside, the landscape, wildlife and biodiversity, as well as a disaster for rural communities, rural trades and the rural economy. No one benefits from a hunt ban. Everyone suffers, including the foxes. Yours faithfully, Roger Helmer MEP East Midlands Region