A reader’s anger over ‘double standards’ in animal welfare laws - your letters, plus RAF Cosford bids farewell to Ben the dog mascot in a picture throwback
Readers weigh in: calls for fairer animal welfare for farmers, concerns over US interest in the Isle of Wight, Darwin insights, and thanks for help in the snow.
You can enjoy other pictures from the past and more with our weekly FREE Nostalgia Newsletter - with scores of archive pictures and exclusive features on the history of Shropshire and Mid Wales - all sent to your inbox every Friday. Sign up here.
Farmers deserve equal treatment
Carrying on from the government’s abysmal disregard and arrogance over farming. We now know it is proposing an unfair and outrageous double standards in animal welfare across the countryside and nation.
Currently British animal welfare law requires that animals are stunned before slaughter to render than unconscious and insensitive to pain when killed.
However, exemptions are permitted on religious grounds, allowing halal and shechita slaughter by cutting the throats of conscious animals.
Farmers have kept sheep across the countryside for generations. They deserve the full protection of the law beyond the farm gate.
The proposed Animal Welfare strategy makes no reference to this slaughter is evidence of political cowardice and awful double standards when it comes to challenging unacceptable standards by religious groups.
This contrasts with the proposed ban on trail hunting which will do little to stop some criminals killing foxes but, will result in the culling of hundreds of healthy fox hounds.
Perhaps, people in our countryside could organise themselves as a religious group and therefore avoid the ridiculous double standards being proposed by this government.
