Letter: Charles's GM stand

Sir: By identifying the advisors to Prince Charles ("Why Prince went tabloid on GM food", 2 June) you begin to expose the anti-democratic nature of the campaign against GM food.

I have watched with alarm as a small group of highly-interconnected people in environmental groups, charities, commerce and the media co-ordinate the use of their position or profession to further their own opinions. Worse still, their relentless coercion has made it difficult for other organisations to take an independent view for fear of obloquy.

It is the cruellest irony that the Government is now accused of news management when this is what the campaign against GM food has been all about.

MARK FISHER

Shipley, West Yorkshire

Sir: Anne McElvoy is an ornament to The Independent. But surely she is guilty of wilder mis-statement than those she targets in her "A Right royal rant that gives us some modified food for thought" (Review, 2 June) when she describes the Prince of Wales as "a product of centuries of genetic modification". Genetic "selection", yes.

Actually, HRH often has an uncanny sense (maybe inherited down the centuries) of what a lot of people are quietly thinking. Multinational companies damage developing countries.

EVELYN ARMISTEAD

Presteigne,

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