Today in #middleclassproblems: worrying how your lamb was killed

It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. At least not very much. The notion, apparently scandalous, that the Great British food market is being contaminated – sorry, infiltrated – by meat slaughtered according to traditional religious practices is the most #MiddleClassProblem of the year.

I mean, you know it’s serious when Waitrose is in the dock. Waitrose!

Now I can see that there is a case for requiring meat slaughtered without the animal being stunned to be labelled as such. But, as Melanie McDonagh concedes, the proportion of livestock slaughtered in this fashion is tiny. Perhaps 10% of sheep but only 3% of cattle and 4% of poultry. A reasonable person might conclude that the attention devoted to this newly-discovered problem is as hysterical as it is disproportionate.

As food scandals go, this one is not much of a scandal. We are arguing, with great seriousness, about whether all animals should be tasered before their throats are cut or if only 95% of them should be treated thus.