Mocking vegans: a sackable offence?
We’re told it’s a lifestyle that will save the planet, avoid cruelty to animals and keep us healthy. So here’s a question, said Rose Prince in The Mail on Sunday: how can veganism, with all its claims to compassion, spawn a vengeful mob intent on bringing down anyone who disagrees with it? The editor of Waitrose Food magazine, William Sitwell, is its latest victim, forced out of his job for joking to a freelance journalist who pitched an idea about plant-based meals that he’d rather run a series on “killing vegans, one by one”. Waitrose should have stood by an excellent editor who believes in free speech and holds independent views on the food industry: that it capitulated to social media activists accusing him of a hate crime “is shameful and should concern us all”.
Hold on, said Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times: this has nothing to do with free speech. Sitwell was in the business of corporate marketing, not crusading journalism. His job was to promote Waitrose, which – keen to cash in on the fact that 12% of Britons are now vegetarian or vegan, and a further 21% only eat meat occasionally – is the first supermarket to have dedicated vegan sections. And though he claims his remarks were made in “a private email”, that’s nonsense: if you’re employed to do a company’s PR, any email you send to a freelance journalist is professional, not personal. There’s certainly been a huge shift in eating habits, said The Guardian, and you can’t edit a food magazine today without acknowledging that – so Sitwell’s response was poorly judged to say the least. Veganism is no longer seen as an extreme lifestyle: instead, it has entered the mainstream – with many of its adherents among Waitrose’s customers. To those who share their environmental concerns, vegans offer “a challenge – even an inspiration”, however irritating carnivores may find them.
The trouble with many vegans – and I’m one, for medical reasons – is their “hectoring, holier-than-thou” tone, said James Delingpole in the Daily Mail: that’s what makes them “so eminently mockable”. They say they’re saving the environment, but conveniently ignore the fact that it takes an estimated 6,098 litres of water to make one litre of almond milk. And the more society meets their needs, the more militant and divisive they become: some are even demanding a law to force all caterers to provide a vegan option. If they want to be treated with greater tolerance, they should learn to be more tolerant themselves. “Oh, and get a sense of humour: that wouldn’t hurt either.”