I read that the Poole-based cosmetics company Lush are to contribute to the incitement to violence in the countryside by funding hunt saboteurs.

If it is true that an international cosmetics company that claims to be ‘ethical’ is effectively taking steps to inflame violence, it not only goes beyond hypocrisy, but is an act of the grossest corporate irresponsibility.

How would Mark Constantine, the co-founder of Lush, and his employees like to be intrusively filmed and recorded against their will, as they went about their legitimate business, by sinister individuals wearing combat clothing and hiding their identities under hoods and behind full-face balaclavas?

This is every bit as intimidating as suffering the more usual verbal threats and abuse.

I number among my acquaintances here in the North West a guy who was attacked while trout fishing by a gang of saboteurs frustrated by their inability to find a grouse shoot they’d wanted to disrupt.

It was widely covered in the media and my acquaintance underwent a truly terrifying experience, that involved hospitalisation.

The cause of ‘animal rights’ that this company appears to support was the prime driver of domestic terror in the UK before the radical Islamists came along.

Animal rights activists used violent intimidation, bombs and grave robbing as part of their ‘campaigning’ mix.

Many of its protagonists are thankfully serving long jail sentences now, but hunt saboteurs are cut from the very same cloth as these people.

This company and its founder should be ashamed of their association with these dangerous thugs.

David Stocker, address supplied, Lancashire