Letter: Shame on SNP

George Leslie (Letters, 4 December ) highlights both the cruelty of snares and, coincidentally, the policy incongruities within his own party.

The "SNP Against Snares" group to which Mr Leslie assigns himself does not represent the official views of his SNP colleagues in government. Environment minister Roseanna Cunningham and her predecessor, Mike Russell, when questioned on the issue, came out in favour of the continued use of snares by the landed elite who run rural Scotland.

The inherent cruelty of snares is obvious, palpable and unacceptably indiscriminate. It is to the great shame of the SNP that it officially supports this method of wildlife "management".

However, there is an even greater shame behind this, and that is the tacit SNP support for a land use and landownership pattern that it swore in its formative years to remove from Scotland.

From its backing of foreign ownership of our national parks, and its support to landowners for installing raptor-killing wind turbines on their land, to its failure to engage with strategic land tenure reform, the SNP has abrogated its responsibility to both man and beast in Scotland.

RON GREER

Armoury House

Blair Atholl, Perthshire