Letter: Traditions of the hunt

Sir: Twaddle such as "the ban [on hunting] is a smack in the face to the people who built the country, fought and died for it" presumably recycles comments by huntsmen who arrogantly regard themselves and their imagined aristocratic forebears as the real British nation.

In reality, the freedom for which British people have "fought and died" includes the right of the 76 per cent who want a ban on hunting to achieve one by parliamentary democracy. The recent attempt by the self-appointed "Countryside Alliance" to overturn the 1949 Parliament Act, rejected by the High Court, would have resulted in the repeated votes of democratically elected MPs in the House of Commons being set aside at the behest of unelected landowning aristocrats and political appointees in the House of Lords. This is the 18th-century mindset of the hunting lobby, accurately represented by Meredith Stranges' letter.

CHRISTOPHER CLAYTON

Waverton, Cheshire