BADGER CULLING

IN October 2012, the House of Commons voted by 147 votes to 28 against the badger cull, but the Government ignored this and Owen Paterson, the minister responsible, did not even attend the debate. The Government has also consistently ignored the overwhelming scientific consensus against the cull, including a letter to the Observer signed by 32 leading scientists. These are people who did not form their judgement on any concern for the suffering of badgers but based their opinion solely on the science.

Now that the cull has, as predicted, proved to be a complete disaster, one would think that common sense would prevail, but not so. As George Bernard Shaw once remarked: ‘Common sense is a very uncommon thing’.

In another House of Commons vote just last week, MPs voted by 219 to one, to end this senseless massacre but the Farming Minister, George Eustice, insisted that the cull would still continue and accused those opposed to it of ‘sentimentality’. Obviously, he and his colleagues believe that the concept of ‘compassion’ should be applied only to human beings. However, even those of the electorate who share their indifference to the plight of this iconic species should still be extremely concerned at the appalling contempt that this rabid Countryside Alliance Government has for the much vaunted ‘democratic process’.

M PRITCHARD Linkside Avenue Oxford