IS there no passing bandwagon on which Hugh Bayley MP will not jump?

His recent call for a ban on samurai swords is typical of the gesture politics which we have come to expect from this Government.

Ban samurai swords and it well then be necessary to ban all other replica swords. Bans on replicas of the claymore, the rapier, the cavalry sabre etc would follow.

Having successfully banned the replicas presumably the next step would be to ban the real thing. This would then require that final counsel of despair, a knife and sword amnesty.

Serious collectors of arms and militaria would be forced to give up their property probably without any payment of compensation. Then a minister would declare the streets free of "deadly weapons".

This would be followed by an increased incidence of attacks with samurai swords not handed in) machetes, billhooks, hatchets, hedge slashers and a hundred other readily available sharp pointy things.

I do not know why people wish to buy replica swords except as ornaments for display above the fireplace and possibly for frightening the odd burglar. They are good for nothing else.

To pretend that banning them would result in a safer society is pure sophistry.

Ian Waghorn,

Chipstead Walk,

Strensall, York.

Updated: 08:44 Monday, May 30, 2005