The think tank in the backroom at No 10 have come up with a new wheeze: to declare very publicly that the government will be tackling animal welfare issues in the New Year. The purpose? To distract attention from their disastrous governmental decisions and failures such as (there are many more than this short list!):
- Stopping illegal immigration in the form of channel crossings. Remember Starmer’s bold and idiotic promises about ‘smashing the gangs’ and his stupid, doomed-to-fail one-in-one-out policy which was bound to be a complete farce and it is? Illegal immigration in the form of boat immigrants is near a peak at around 42,000 for the year with no signs of it dropping.
- House building target of 1.5 million during this parliament. He is nowhere near that target and won’t meet it.
- Growth? Utter failure because both budgets were bound to stunt growth and they have.
- Inheritance tax on farmers? The government have U-turned again on this and increased the threshold from £1 million to £2.5 million as they realise Reeves made yet another chronic decision which left some farmers suicidal! Yet another U-turn which points to initial poor decision making.
The current government has declared an ambitious policy to improve animal welfare but the truth is that animal welfare is always second best when it comes to enacting new law and I am convinced, as mentioned, that this is a rather feeble attempt by the Labour government to distract the population away from an incessant stream of bad news regarding an endless stream of mistakes and poor policies, poor ideas, poor thinking from this inept government.
One of the issues with respect to improving animal welfare is how lobsters are killed in kitchens. Historically they’re simply placed in boiling water which kills them but it has been correctly decided that lobsters are sentient beings and therefore they must feel substantial pain when killed in this way. This is mass and ongoing animal cruelty which is almost totally ignored by restaurant clientele.
I’m told by The Times that many chefs currently kill lobsters by thrusting a knife into the animal’s brain before boiling them and they believe that this does the trick in terms of animal welfare.
Another method proposed is to stun them first through electrocution and then to put them in boiling water. But already chefs are referring to the difficulties of this process or let’s say the practicalities. The machines are expensive and large. Further, and this is a great point, the police are highly unlikely to enforce any new law regarding the killing of lobsters in kitchens.
Why can we say this? Because the police have demonstrated with great clarity that they are disinterested in stopping mass shoplifting from supermarkets. Great Britain is awash with shoplifters marching into supermarkets and taking what they wish in front of customers and employees before walking out the door unhindered because employees are told not to intervene in the interests of their safety.
So the police simply are disinterested in what they see as a minor crime but which is in fact is now major crime wave. How then are they going to enforce laws which prevent the boiling of lobsters in kitchens? They simply are not.
Other plans declared by this inept government is for a consultation on banning shock collars as they cause harm to pets. And dog breeders are to be brought into a mandatory national register and puppy farming will end, it is reported.
Further, new laws will ban what are described as low welfare dogs and cats meaning those bred abroad and imported into this country. They are often bred in unhealthy conditions and the animals, sadly, are not too infrequently stricken with serious disease.
Further, rescue and rehoming centres also face new licensing rules. In addition, using carbon dioxide to stun pigs will be banned. But the new rules do not mention non-stun slaughter which remains legal as part of religious exemptions i.e. halal meat.
There are also plans to improve welfare of farmed animals to include moving away from using colony cages for laying hens and pig farming crates. There are also plans to introduce more humane slaughter methods for farmed fish. Fish are sentient. People forget that. There is so much suffering by fish.
These are all grand government plans which I find admirable. However, being highly sceptical and distrusting about this government, I do not see any of these laws either being enacted or being enforced if they are enacted. I think this is a PR exercise.
The government simply want something new to be reported in the headlines and they want to sell to the public that they are sensitive, nice people, interested in animal welfare in order to try and recover some popularity because this Labour government is highly unpopular with British citizens owing to their abject failure to meet their own objectives and their tendency to introduce feeble new policies which are clearly destined to fail.
More: animal law
