IT comes as no surprise that Nicola Blackwood is supported by a leafleting campaign organised by the pro-hunting lobby Vote OK (April 9).

Ms Blackwood’s assertion that the Hunting Act is undemocratic is blatant nonsense since the act is in fact a rare incidence of the will of the people being realised in legislation.

According to a Mori opinion poll, 80 per cent of the British people support the Hunting Act. The vast majority is also opposed to the now notorious badger cull (again supported by Nicola Blackwood) that is set to continue in June. This cull is similarly condemned by the overwhelming scientific consensus, on purely scientific grounds.

The Parliament Act was indeed used in order to push through the Hunting Act that bans the recreational abuse of wildlife, but this was necessary in order to bypass the undemocratic House of Lords, since the Lords invariably promoted their own personal interests and agenda in overriding the will of the House of Commons on this issue.

The pros and cons of this form of recreational cruelty to wildlife have been debated ad nauseam in and out of parliament for decades, so Ms Blackwood is being highly disingenuous in suggesting that a proper debate is needed.

Conservative MPs had for many years sabotaged such proposed legislation time and time again, by reading from telephone directories etc. in order to make the bill run out of time.

Is that Ms Blackwood’s idea of democracy?

Mark Pritchard
Linkside Avenue
Oxford