Banned wagon
A weekly survey of the things our rulers want to prohibit IF you wish to excite the disapproval of the British, there are better ways than by embarking on the slaughter of the first-born. Try instead suggesting something uncharitable be done to a dog or a cat. Some years ago this magazine ran a tongue-in-cheek piece by Jennifer Paterson featuring selected doggy recipes and received more angry letters than ever before or since. If that is the reaction from Spectator readers, whom we hope are less given to emotional response than the average Brit, imagine what a rich vein of cynophilia there is to be tapped in the rest of the population.
With this in mind, no doubt, 71 MPs have kicked off the general-election season by launching a campaign to tan the import, export and domestic trade in dog and cat fur or in objects made with dog and cat fur'. Of all the political measures from which the nation could benefit, I have to say that this one had passed me by. I don't know which shops those 71 MPs are in the habit of frequenting, but I have yet to spot my first pair of poodleskin slippers or moggy ear-muffs.
All of which makes one wonder just what goes through our MPsminds when they are dreaming up their better Britains and their societies fit for the 21st century. Just supposing somebody did fancy a pair of knee-breeches made from an Afghan hound; is there really any burning need to stop them? Afghan hounds are not exactly endangered animals, so why is using their fur to make artefacts any less acceptable than carving up a cow to make a pair of shoes? In any case, the proposed law won't so much stop real-life Cruella de Vils as trap innocent dog-lovers who have had their deceased pets stuffed.
Not that it makes a difference to the backbench MPs; all that matters is that they are seen to care.
Ross Clark
Previous page
