ANOTHER VOICE

Another shadow over the festive season

AUBERON WAUGH

It is good news that Lynx, the animal rights group, has gone bust, but much less good news that the Duke of Hamilton, 54, has been charged with assaulting a police- man near his home in East Lothian.

Lynx was the animal charity favoured by such of yesterday's beautiful people as Linda McCartney, Neil Kinnock, John Gielgud, Twiggy and Dighvid Bighley, the once-fashionable Cockney fashion photog- rapher. It may claim to have succeeded in Putting about 46 fur farms out of business, and to have persuaded Harrods to close its fur department, but one of its most hilari-

ous japes was to persuade 41 Anglican bish- ops to sign the pledge in a book called Cru- elty and Christian Conscience: Bishops Say No to Fur. They included the Bishops of London, Oxford, Salisbury, Gloucester as

well as 83-year-old Lord Coggan, the for- mer Archbishop of Canterbury whom we used to call St Donald a Duckett.

As the Bishop of Worcester put it: 'I am glad to pledge that I do not buy or wear fur. I deplore the cruelty associated with the taking of the pelts of animals when other fabrics are available.' When someone reminded him that bishops wore fur- trimmed robes at the State Opening of Par- liament, this amiable man replied: 'I hadn't thought of that. I've got one upstairs. I've only worn it once and I suppose I will wear It again. What a humbug I am. It's difficult to take an absolute stance on anything in this life. You may say that you don't think furs should be worn, but it's difficult to avoid it on occasion.'

An almost Charles Moore-like gush of affection for the Church of England on reading that statement by Bishop Goodrich of Worcester was quelled when I read the reaction of the Bishop of Salisbury, on Whose behalf a spokesman said there was no question of the bishop wearing fur- trimmed parliamentary robes in the future:

.He might have, unwittingly, in the past, but it won't happen again. The bishop feels extremely strongly about this.'

Does Bishop Baker of Salisbury really feel extremely strongly about whether his Parliamentary robes are trimmed with the fur of some long-dead animal? What a creep and a twerp he must be. But Lynx has gone bust, ruined by a rich- ly deserved libel action brought by an enraged fur farmer who had been accused of running a 'hell-hole' in the society's news letter, circulated to MPs. The case lasted 24 days. A £500,000 fighting fund launched by Linda McCartney herself raised only £10,000. So it looks as if that particular cor- ner of radical chic is running out of steam. If McCartney is still married to her ghastly, warbling husband, she could perfectly well have produced the money herself. So could Gielgud or even Dighvid Bighley, I dare say.

'This year, 50 million wild animals were gassed, strangled, trapped or electrocuted internationally,' said Mr Mark Glover, Lynx's director. 'With the passing of Lynx, the main voice of protest is silenced. If this is justice, God help the animals.'

No doubt He will, although I must admit I do not understand how anybody but God could have counted all those 50 million wild animals as they were gassed, strangled, trapped or electrocuted internationally last year. I wonder how one sets about electro- cuting animals internationally. . . we may laugh, but the point about Mr Glover's petulant cry is that the beautiful people are no longer prepared to put their money where their faces are.

Nor can anyone see anything smart or clever or trendsetting in the RSPCA's dis- gusting series of advertisements over Christmas. On the theme that this was going to be the worst year in recorded his- tory for dumped puppies and kittens (recession-hit pet owners have not been able to afford to have their animals neutered, sob!), we saw a little girl asking Santa for a puppy. When Santa (played, to his eternal shame, by Michael Hordern) spelled out how much exercise, inoculation and care the little dog will need, the girl's face fell and she decided on a ghetto- blaster instead.

Perhaps the little girl would have dumped the puppy, although my own guess is that she would have contributed to the gross domestic product by having it put down quite expensively by a vet. What is 'My mum and dad never married — I'm a love child.' certain is that she will make her family's life hell — and her neighbours' — with her accursed ghetto-blaster. The fact that the RSPCA urges parents to give their children ghetto-blasters rather than puppies tells us all we need to know about the RSPCA and the vulgar misanthropy which inspires it.

So Christmas and New Year — what used to be referred to, rather gloomily, in provincial pubs, as the festive season — have become a time for animal sentimen- talists to parade themselves, as if strong feelings about animals, in a religionless age, might supply some sort of substitute. On Boxing Day, the anti-hunting activists, the saboteurs and animal liberation lunatics are out in force. What a dear little country of eccentrics we are!

Or so we might reasonably decide. My point is that we are nothing of the sort. The real function of the Festive Season is alto- gether more sinister. It is the time of year when the puritans and power maniacs take two steps forward, and seldom, nowadays, take a single step back. Obviously, I have no opinion on the point of whether the Duke of Hamilton assaulted a policeman near his home at Haddington. Least of all, have I any opinion on the subject of why he might have assaulted a policeman, if he did. The report in the Daily Telegraph was tanta- lisingly brief. It merely said that the 54- year-old duke had been stopped by police while driving near Lennoxlove, and that he had been charged with road traffic offences and police assault.

In writing about the risk of being charged with assaulting a policeman recently, I mentioned the particular danger for young people, blacks and the unemployed work- ing class who might be suspected of inso- lence, especially in the Metropolitan area. Middle-aged, middle-class people like myself ran less of a risk, even in places like Manchester and London, I said, although there were signs that senior police officers were beginning to find this restriction irk- some. The Duke of Hamilton is no Hooray Henry figure. He has been Scotland's pre- mier duke for nearly 20 years, lives in a palace and is a qualified test pilot. Why should such a man wish to assault a police officer after all these years? Why should the East Lothian police wish to press a charge if he didn't? These are serious ques- tions, more serious than any alleged epi- demic of puppy-dumping, and I would very much like an answer to them.