DID you know the Government of Gordon Brown spends your tax money poisoning defenceless animals (guinea pigs, rabbits, rats etc) and swabbing burning solvents on to their shaved skin?

Or that beagle puppies are locked in dimly-lit metal chambers while ruthless researchers pump in deadly pesticides? Or that some laboratory tests kill hundreds of animals every time they are used?

These are our modern Dachaus, our Auschwitzes, our Birkenaus, and it has aptly been remarked that if animals had knowledge of religion, they would portray the devil as a man.

Picture the grief caused by a lethal dose of toxic chemicals being shoved into your pet's mouth. Quite unthinkable! Yet each day we pay - by our choice in cosmetics/pharmaceuticals - to have animals used in tortuous experiments.

Animals and human beings are the losers, because every pound spent to harm laboratory animals is a pound that could have - and should have - been used to help people. Surely our ailing social services are more important than cruel and scientifically invalid experiments?

Aled Jones, Mount Crescent, Bridlington, East Yorkshire.