Mmmm ! Morris dancing with ritual slaughter ? Now theres a rare thought.

The problems of rural deprivation, isolation, and insecurity are well documented - It is a pity that those who are now pretending to care about the major problems did not give a damn before thier "fox hunting" was threatened.

Something suggests to me that the whole issue of hunting with dogs is a red herring. It's more a cry of rage that the establishment, which tends to model it's self on a rural aristocracy, now finds it's self excluded from political power.

I'am afraid that various Lords and Ladies, wealthy bankers, and Ian Duncan Smith, do not convince me about thier sudden concern for the economic rights of the rural dweller.

I can rember whole communities being wiped out, sons deprived of the right to follow thier fathers in to employment. Oh yes, and when coalfield met countryside headlines in local papers such as the "Kentish Gazzette" - "Man in fight with miner"!

Gareth