BBC’s propaganda programme, Countryfile, chose the ideal location for its live sanitised version of rural reality.

Blenheim Palace is a bastion for blood sports, and the Bear Inn at Woodstock also proudly displays a sign outside its premises depicting a bear baiting scene to remind us of yet another noble British rural tradition.

One could hardly expect the programme to feature battery hens but it was unfortunate for the Countryfile producers that the Pytchley Hunt was forced to withdraw at the last minute after an online petition signed by well over 10,000 people outraged by the undercover exposure of the hunt’s involvement in rearing fox cubs for the illegal ‘sport’.

The British Bloodsports Corporation has always done its utmost to support cruelty.

For instance, those who watch BBC1 news will be familiar with the film of guns on a grouse moor that precedes its bulletins.

This was originally of such brief duration that it constituted a form of subliminal brainwashing, but it now lasts longer.

The producers would doubtless however have preferred to feature the local Heythrop Hunt, but for the fact that it was successfully prosecuted by the RSPCA for contravening the Hunting Act, although the Heythrop is of course still functioning as normal.

The appearance of Princess Anne in the programme last year when she advocated gassing badgers as ‘a nicer way’ to slaughter them, represented a new low, especially as her views were unchallenged.

But the BBC is intent on doing its utmost to endorse the notorious badger ‘cull’, and virtually every other obscenity perpetrated by country folk, by whatever means possible.

Mark Pritchard

Linkside Avenue, Oxford