TWO stories particularly caught my attention in a recent issue of The Hunts Post, and they made an interesting contrast to the judicious Commentary piece in the same edition. The first tale was that of poor Madeleine Morris, humiliated victim of the Co-op

TWO stories particularly caught my attention in a recent issue of The Hunts Post, and they made an interesting contrast to the judicious Commentary piece in the same edition.

The first tale was that of poor Madeleine Morris, humiliated victim of the Co-op's rampant corporate social responsibility schtick. Like all politically correct posturing, it flies in the face of good sense and genuine concern for others.

Madeleine, aged 38, was first refused the opportunity to buy alcohol, a purchase which it is perfectly legal for an adult to make, apparently on the grounds that she might then give it to the teenager, her 16 year-old nephew, who was with her. She was then refused again when she returned alone.

This is not merely over the top: it is outrageous. It is for customers to patronise retailers, not retailers to patronise customers.

A similar policy of self-righteous prod-nosing is also pursued by our new eco-friendly, carbon-light, environmentally-conscious Tesco. But Tesco's new-found environmental zealotry brings me to the second story, the Rev Philip Foster's shock-horror climate-change-myth claim.

Your Commentary piece does not address his central thesis: that the adherents of that old secular religion, Marxism, have hijacked the green lobby. This they have achieved, he says, having been marginalised briefly by the collapse of soviet communism in the West and the slow, strange metamorphosis of Chinese communism in the East. We now have Marxist fundamentalism resurrected as environmentalism. This is a reasonable view.

The global man-made climate change enterprise is not based on science. In scientific inquiry, debate can never be closed down: the state of knowledge is never really settled or beyond doubt. (Even in Christianity, believers are permitted to doubt).

As an old trade unionist, I recognise well the language and strategy of the new religionists. They never engage in intellectual exchange. Personal abuse and vilification is far more effective in silencing the challengers, who are 'flat-earthers' or 'climate-change-deniers' (a deliberate slur by association with Holocaust-deniers).

Followers of the environmental faith are entitled to do their politicking, but we would be wise to watch them intelligently if we are to keep the few personal freedoms that remain to us.

K LINLEY

Malthouse Lane

Ramsey