The Politics of Letter Page Editors

The following is a letter submitted to The Guardian on June 30th 2005.

'So the British Cattle Movement Service and the Cattle Tracing Service both provide large, yellow ear-ID tags for the millions of cattle in the country. Under PFI could they win a contract to extend the scheme to the people of Britain and provide a fashion accessory for everybody, similar to a young scallywag's court ordered tagging? Prodding, Herding and Slaughtering seem apt metaphors for this Government's attitude towards the people of the world.'

This is what The Guardian actually carried on July 1st;

'So the British Cattle Movement Service and the Cattle Tracing Service both provide large, yellow ear-ID tags for millions of cattle (Letters, June 30). Maybe under PFI could they win a contract to extend the scheme to the people of Britain. Prodding and herding seem apt metaphots for this government's attitude to people.'

I don't mind the editing of the 'witty' (at least I thought so) part of the letter about fashion accessories and the tagging of scallywags, except that it no longer scans very well. But I find the removal of the words 'slaughtering' and 'world' inappropriate, in that it sanitises what this government is doing in our name around the globe. But that's The Guardian for you.