Letter: Bird-killing law is a vote loser

I READ with alarm your report that John Gummer, the Environment Secretary, has 'cautiously welcomed' plans to change a European Union law which prohibits the hunting of migratory birds heading north ('Gummer puts birds in line of French fire', 27 March). You say the French government has put pressure on Brussels to change the law, and that the EU President, Jacques Delors, has managed to overrule the environment commissioner Yannis Paleokrassis.

If true, this is disgraceful. It has been done by the French government to safeguard its own political position in the June elections. Surely our own government needs little reminding of its own vulnerable position. People like myself will be influenced in the European elections if such environmental considerations are ignored, and laws enforced by Brussels are flouted for the sake of political expediency.

Beatrice Dennis

Kington, Herefordshire