MY FEARS about the coalition government have been confirmed.

Despite the fact that David Cameron failed to win a majority, the influence of the Countryside Alliance within the Tory Party has prevailed, and – to the eternal disgrace of the Liberal Democrats – a bid to repeal the Hunting Act is to go ahead in the near future.

As if that were not hideous enough, the Government is also going to institute a cull of badgers in TB-affected areas, despite all the scientific evidence that this is not just ineffective, but actually counter-productive.

It will be salt in the wound of those who oppose such a cull to know that it will be paid for with their taxes.

Nick Clegg’s pompous and grandiloquent claim of introducing the most reforming measures since 1832 has barely faded away, and we hear of these brutal measures.

If this Government succeeds in giving back free rein to the savagery of hunting, and also inflicts massive suffering on the much-loved badger, its credentials will be blown sky high, and no amount of lecturing from the insufferably smug duo Cameron and Clegg will erase that stain from this wretched government of convenience.

If the bid to repeal the Hunting Act succeeds, hare coursing will become legal again, and every hare which screams as the dogs catch it will be the victim of this Government, whose two wretched leader-clones repeatedly tell us how lucky we are that they have got together to govern in an enlightened way.

Enlightened! I hope their wicked, cruel plans for our wild animals become their own downfall.

Those who reviled Gordon Brown because he was awkward and shy can now reflect that, in his place, we have a coalition of wildlife persecutors.

Penny Little, Back Way, Great Haseley