THE council's Labour Group has decided that one of the most pressing issues for the city is the consumption of foie gras (Let's outlaw cruel trade, The Press, January 23).

York residents might be mistaken for believing that issues such as the NHS, or flooding, or the continuing illegal war in Iraq, or climate change, or cash for peerages might be of some importance.

But at today's full council meeting Labour is proposing the city council concentrates on foie gras.

I suppose this motion was dreamed up in some swanky Islington restaurant, where Labour leaders and would-be leaders push caviar and foie gras round their plates while haggling over who will run the country.

The way foie gras is produced is not something to celebrate, but what is important here is the spectacle of a political party so out of touch with the rest of us that they consider this the burning issue on the lips of each and every York resident.

What's next? A call for a ban on pearl fishing in the Ouse to protect the York oyster? A campaign to ban council workers from wearing mink stoles at work? A demand to outlaw solid gold knockers on doors in Acomb?

Your readers will remember the thousands of hours of House of Commons time spent on hunting.

The poorly drafted law that resulted has done almost nothing to protect the life of a single fox, and did nothing to address the real welfare issues that stem from poor animal husbandry, including battery farms and the routine injection of antibiotics in order to produce cheaper meat for supermarkets.

If this Government wanted to do something about animal welfare it could, but it's too busy worrying about foie gras.

Coun Christian Vassie, Blake Court, Wheldrake, York.


I WOULD just like to say how lovely it was to read that York could be the first UK city to ban all sales of foie gras.

Although all meat production is cruel by its very nature (no living creature would willingly offer themselves up to someone's dinner plate), foie gras is particularly nasty in its production - ducks and geese are force-fed by a tube down their throats until their livers are fattened to bursting point. Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California, also banned it in 2004.

Well done to Coun Paul Blanchard for tabling this motion, and let's hope City of York Council passes it; it would definitely be another step forward towards a more compassionate world.

Sarah Bramley, Gordon Street, York.