Why these vegans can’t take a joke
SO it’s fine for vegans to issue death threats and put butchers in fear of their lives, not so fine when the boot is on the other foot.
Hence the furore sparked by William Sitwell, editor of the Waitrose magazine, when in response to an inquiry from vegan freelance journalist suggesting a series of features on plant-based recipes, he replied: “How about a series on killing vegans, one by one?”
A little banter, a light-hearted remark, as anyone can see – anyone except a militant vegan of course. Which is why the snivelling complaints soon started about the murderous sentiments voiced and the unwarranted slur on the vegan movement that had been uttered.
In order to quieten things down Sitwell was obliged to grovel and to apologise for a joke that had gone too far. In the end the shrieking, the hysteria and the tidal wave of opprobrium launched via social media all got too much and he resigned.
And I have every sympathy with him. No job in the world is worth it if one cannot voice an opinion which is likely to upset someone. The real joke here, of course, is that people are so worried about upsetting vegans, a small but vociferous minority which is attempting to foist its irrational dietary habits on all of us. Unfortunately this incident demonstrates that becoming vegan (and none of us is born a vegan, I might add) leads to one’s sense of humour withering, atrophying and finally dropping off while one’s sense of self-righteousness grows in inverse proportion.
The most nauseating aspect of this ridiculous movement is those thousands allying themselves with it by describing themselves as ‘semivegans’ while banging the drum for the cause as loudly as anyone. They are the ones who adhere to a largely vegan diet but, apparently, eat meat occasionally – presumably when the prospect of a juicy piece of rump steak wins out over yet another dreary concoction of beans and leaves – and who I suppose are quite happy to go along with the idea of leather shoes and jackets.
I have news for them: there is no such thing as a ‘semi-vegan’. One is either vegan or one is not.
There is no halfway house, no picking and choosing of the bits that suit. Describing oneself as a ‘semivegan’ is like rocking up for midnight mass every Christmas Eve and then professing to be a regular churchgoer.
Vegans also see themselves as a great international movement but over in France, with whose vegan community British vegans are quick to align themselves, butchers’ shops have been vandalised and their owners not merely branded as murderers but threatened – along with their families – with very unpleasant forms of death.
I assume British vegans are entirely content with what the brothers and sisters over on the continent are up to in furtherance of their distorted beliefs – or would they care to come out and condemn such violent tactics?
And when equally, are they going to learn the lessons that if one is going to go round so readily criticising other people for their lifestyles then it’s as well to accept criticism – even when delivered with the degree of levity employed by William Sitwell – when it is returned rather than launching into vicious tirades which give the rest of us even more grounds to wonder the absence of meat from the diet can lead to the balance of the mind being disturbed? there are rangers to look after rights of way and access but what the visitor finds is a mixed landscape of moorland and working farms which is evolving – despite its protected status – at much the same pace as the rest of the country.
The cloud for the Quantocks, however, lies over the western horizon where there are rumblings, at the very least, about the boundaries of Exmoor national park being extended to encompass the hills.
This, indeed, was the preferred boundary when the national park was first designated but farmers and landowners on the Quantocks wanted none of it, fought against it and eventually won the day.
And what a sensible decision that was. Outside the national park, life goes on: inside, communities have found themselves living in a time warp as the authorities decreed that Exmoor as it existed in the late 1940s was the optimum model which should be protected as much as possible from change.
Petty restrictions have been enforced ruthlessly: a farmer who replaced a rotting wooden window with a PVC one on an elevation of his house that was only visible from his land was ordered to rip it out and replace like with like – as though the Victorians wouldn’t have embraced double glazing as enthusiastically as they did all other advancements, had it been available.
Far more energy and resources have been put into studying and conserving Exmoor’s plant, bird and animal life that providing for human needs.
The rush for second homes has been largely unchecked with the most picturesque settlements swamped by them and losing their shops and other amenities as a result: one of the national park’s own studies revealed that villages with the greatest concentrations of second homes were those that had lost most local services.
Lying behind all this is the influence wielded by the Exmoor Society, a conservation group apparently dedicated to halting progress at the national park boundary.
Many of its members don’t even live on Exmoor and when the park authority itself has been stuffed with government appointees chosen apparently for their specialist knowledge but who also may have lived up to 100 miles away it’s easy to see how true Exmoor locals have felt themselves besieged in their own homes.
Small wonder, then, that Exmoor’s MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has suggested that people on the Quantocks would feel as happy about the hills being annexed to become part of the national park as the Czechs were when the Germans marched in in 1939.
He has now taken up the misgivings about the whole idea with Environment Secretary Michael Gove who would be the final arbiter on any change proposed under the Government’s review of national park structures.
The word – which will at least console the Quantocks Hills communities – is that ‘Govey’ thinks Exmoor is absolutely fine as it is and that the status quo should prevail. But he has been left in little doubt as to the firestorm that would ensue should that view ever change.