My cat’s death was no accident – it was clearly suicide
Do you own – or have you ever owned – a dog? A cat? A budgie? Have you ever allowed your children to keep hamsters, or guinea pigs, or rabbits, or goldfish? If so, you’re a cruel, hateful bigot who will be condemned by future generations the way we today condemn the owners of slaves.
That, at any rate, is the impression given by an article in The Guardian this week, which reported the views of leading “ethicists” (I’d never come across an ethicist before, but I gather it means someone who is professionally qualified to know better than the rest of us). According to the ethicists, keeping a pet is wrong.
“Pet ownership is problematic because it denies animals the right of self-determination,” I learnt. “We dictate what they eat, where they live, how they behave, how they look.”
I’m ashamed to admit that I’d never thought of it like that before. My wife and I used to have a cat, but sadly he got run over. I always assumed it was an accident, but I now realise he was simply trying to escape the intolerable daily oppression of free food, comfort and shelter.
Are other pets as miserable as ours must have been? Frustratingly, all the voices quoted in The Guardian’s report were human, so I carried out some interviews of my own.
“Ordinary British animals are crying out for self-determination,” said Buster, a four-year-old dachshund from Gosport, Hampshire. “We want the right to lead our own lives, make our own decisions – but the discrimination and prejudice we face from human beings make it impossible. The moment I walk through the door for a job interview, I can tell from their faces that I might as well not have bothered. Did you know that on the boards of FTSE 100 firms, just 2 per cent of directors are geese?”
“Life as a pet is stultifyingly repressive,” said Nemo, a ninemonth-old koi carp in Cheadle, Staffordshire. “I’m so sick of being forced to swim around this pond all day. I can’t tell you how I long to be released into the wild, so that I can roam the woods and hills, eat fruit in the orchards and make love in the fields, free at last to live as I choose.”
Sobering words. The Guardian’s ethicists are right. It’s time to stop treating pets as inferiors. To start fetching our own sticks. To abandon our outdated notions of what constitutes a “good dog” and a “bad dog”. Let the campaign for species equality begin today.
Not until a King Charles spaniel enters 10 Downing Street can we
call ourselves a true democracy.
A tough week for the British Left. As Venezuela continues its collapse into tyranny, poverty and chaos, leading Labour figures – including Jeremy Corbyn – are being asked to explain why they have previously hailed its socialist regime as a beacon of justice, and an example to the neoliberal capitalist West. Mr Corbyn, however, is yet to respond. Thankfully, the Labour leader’s spin doctors have been hard at work scripting suggested answers for his acolytes to use in interviews.
1 “As with his scrupulously honest remarks about student debt, the mainstream media are wilfully misrepresenting what Jeremy has said in the past about Venezuela. When he said the regime in Venezuela was ‘an inspiration to us all’ and ‘a cause for celebration’, what he clearly meant was that it was not an inspiration to us all and was a cause for grave concern. It is appalling to see his words twisted in this manner.”
2 “Minimum wage down 75 per cent, GDP down 40 per cent, and 82 per cent of the population living below the breadline. Venezuela is yet another helpless victim of Tory austerity.”
3 “Interesting, isn’t it, the way the media are determined to blame Venezuela’s problems on socialism. Meanwhile, not a single British newspaper has published reports of Margaret Thatcher returning from the grave, seizing Caracas, and going door to door strangling innocent children. No wonder trust in our press is at an all-time low.”
4 “The problems in Venezuela have nothing to do with socialism. They’ve simply been caused by the fall in global oil prices. That’s why President Maduro kidnaps his political opponents and arrests critical journalists. There is clear evidence that oil is to blame.”
5 “All these endless questions about money, money, money. It’s so typical of our shallow Western obsession with wealth. What price principle? What price fairness? What price social justice? You know, some things are more important than money, food, medicine, public order, and going to bed confident that you won’t be torn from your family in the night by the secret police.”
6 “Venezuelan socialists should be celebrated. They said they would make everyone equal, and they have. Everyone is equally hungry.” The question has engrossed philosophers for centuries. Is morality innate – or is it learnt?
At last the conundrum has been resolved – by my three-year-old son.
The other day, he was rewatching Minions, the hit animated comedy. Just as I sat down beside him, the film’s villain appeared on screen.
“Scarlet Overkill!” I hissed. “The baddie!”
My son looked at me with derision. “She not a baddie!” he scoffed. “She is a baddie,” I said. “She’s plotting to steal the Queen’s crown.” “She not a baddie!”
“She traps the Minions in a dungeon and orders them to be tortured.” “She not a baddie!”
“She tries to blow them up.” “She not a baddie!”
“Her name is Overkill. It’s a clue that she isn’t a very nice person.”
“She not a baddie! Silly Daddy!” So now we know. Morality is not innate. If you don’t teach your children that treason, torture and murder are wrong, they apparently have no idea.