Letter: Hunt all the toffs who think they're superior

However, the main point of this letter is to congratulate Jean Calder for explaining so clearly the true significance of fox-hunting ("The braying defenders of privilege", The Argus, October 2).

It is, indeed, the symbol of a class-ridden society operating under a very thin veneer of civilisation. As Ms Calder quite rightly says, the way a country treats the weak and vulnerable in its midst, including animals, is a measure of its true civility.

It does not consist of ever-more sophisticated and refined ways of oppressing and manipulating others - in the case of animals, factory-farming, increasing numbers of superficial animal experiments, hunting and shooting, animal "entertainments" such as show-jumping and horse trials etc.

The vast majority of the population is by turns amused and appalled at the spectacle of an unfeeling and privileged elite dressed to kill, chasing a fox across a countryside they either own or think they do.

Such arrogant attitudes are of course supported and encouraged by Team Posh - an exclusive network of nannies, private education, boarding schools, inherited land and wealth and their own in-house newspapers - The Telegraph and The Times.

Denied the fun of hunting a fox, I am sure they would happily hunt a Labour politician with the wrong views or a grubby, scrounging member of the underclass.

There was a time in recent years when John Major talked of a so-called classless society. But nothing could be more misguided. The current (albeit equivocal) threat to fox-hunting by this government has shown a virulent class structure surviving, indeed flourishing, and exposed the sheer nastiness of upper-class extremists.

A more civilised society? Removal of fox-hunting would be a start. Perhaps then the rest of us could take up Toff-hunting and the outmoded, unpleasant ruling class regime that seems to go with them.

-David Pritchard, Southwick