Dear all I'm a third year geography undergraduate at Sidney Sussex, Cambridge and I've only just joined the cgf. This is my first contribution, so it's going to be short. I've been fascinated by the rural protest(s) this weekend, and particularly by the make-up of the 'Countryside Alliance'. Yesterday, I spoke to someone who attended and asked him about claims that the protest had been 'hijacked' - he said yes, by those _not_ opposed to blood sports. I think it's clear that the protest is a very complicated affair, and I'd caution against explaining it in purely class terms. The work of Varshney on rational choice models of political behaviour in India's so-called 'new agrarianism' should perhaps lead us to question the extent to which the rural working-class' involvement can only be attributed to fear/pressure from employers or land owners. A different context I know, but it raises interesting theoretical issues about the political mobilisation of such movements. David Lambert, Sidney Sussex, Cambridge %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%