The madness of murdering badgers

Buoyed by its huge popularity in the opinion polls and the fact that it is managing Brexit so well, the government has decided to further endear itself to the voters by shooting hundreds of thousands of badgers. Its cull of these creatures, previously limited to a few specific areas (where it has been staggeringly unsuccessful), is to be rolled out nationwide. This, then, is what we might call a Hard Brocksit strategy and it was revealed late on a bank holiday weekend in the hope that nobody would notice. But we did notice.

It is not known yet how exactly these animals will be despatched. Previously the hunters have sprinkled peanuts in the middle of a field in the dead of night and shot anything which tried to eat them. Cages have also been used. This time I would suggest that the badgers are transported live to Westminster Green where members of the cabinet can kick and stamp them to death, in full public view, just to drive the message home. Show a Tory a member of the animal kingdom and he will reach for his revolver, or cudgel, or hobnailed boots.

Whatever virtues the Conservative party possesses — and they seem to dwindle daily — being nice to animals isn’t one of them. It is just over a year since Theresa May, in a moment of monumental stupidity, announced she would like to see another free Commons vote on fox hunting with the aim to repeal the ‘hunting with hound’ legislation. Given that 80 per cent of the population is in favour of the ban and virtually all of those who are against are Tories, this was maladroit handling on a par with what you might expect from a Liverpool goalkeeper.