IN his letter regarding fox hunting (January 23), David Johnston-Allen refers to parliamentary time spent on banning the practice as being "a waste".

The Conservative candidate Karl McCartney also seems to have implied that there was something irrelevant about banning this cruelty, when compared to other issues.

However, there is considerable scientific evidence which shows that a tendency to abusive behaviour towards animals in children can develop into cruelty towards other humans in adulthood.

It would seem, therefore, that even for those who see the suffering of one kind of being as OK and another as not OK, the argument that banning cruelty to animals is a waste of time or unimportant is untenable, given the possible human repercussions.

Mr Johnston-Allen also agrees with Mr McCartney's view that "freedom" is eroded if people are not allowed to engage in this cruelty.

Again, this is facile: what sort of freedom includes a right to inflict horrific pain and suffering?

Does this freedom extend to cruelty to other animals – the family cat, for instance? Or, indeed, people we don't like?

Time spent preventing cruelty to any living being is never a waste or an infringement of freedom.

All that is needed for suffering to occur is a mindset that says, "I can do this because the creature I'm doing it to can't stop me".

Whether human or animal is not relevant because there is no convenient divide in terms of pain suffered and intent to harm. While we argue about the difference, suffering at the hands of the cruel persists.

Mrs Alison Moore Torrington Lane, East Barkwith.

The majority of the British public finds fox hunting cruel and disgusting – hence the law to ban it.

This is called democracy and it is not ignored or trampled over for people who enjoy killing animals.

MP Gillian Merron's dedication to helping this bill go through (January 23) was greatly appreciated by those who have wanted this archaic activity banned, and I can assure Lincoln's Conservative candidate Karl MCartney that helping to voice the wishes of the majority is never a waste of time.

In fact, that is what his job, should he be elected, should be about.

As a campaigner for animal welfare for some 20 years, I have found that when questioning countries such as Korea or China about their appalling atrocities to dogs and cats, the usual response would be to cite fox hunting as a sort of excuse for their animal abuse.

This so-called cop-out has now be removed; and, indeed, Catalonia in Spain has now banned bullfighting, with the majority of the populace voting that "killing animals for sport was unacceptable in a civilised society".

So the ban on fox hunting has a far wider positive effect, in making the world a more civilised place for animals, than one can at first imagine.

Suzanne Thorpe Lincoln.