Kittens spared but foxes to die?

by Greg McDonald

Health and safety officials are right to block Mariah Carey’s demands for 20 white kittens and 100 white doves when she turns on a London shopping centre’s Christmas lights. Animals are sentient creatures, not toys, and our society must stop abusing them.

When it comes to treating animals ethically, Britain is some way ahead of the Far East, where “delicacies” like the still-wriggling, still-suffering live fish meal in today’s headlines still prevail.

Yet modern Britain has not travelled this far from its cock-fighting, bear-baiting past without brave legislators having the courage to lead public attitudes to the treatment of animals.

It’s essential that today’s law-makers continue their forebears’ good work by outlawing cruel practices. Yet tragically next year precisely the opposite may happen - for Mariah Carey is not the only photogenic star whose entourage threatens Britain’s animals.

Hug-a-hoodie image or no, David Cameron plans to overturn the fox hunting ban, and Brits proud to be a nation of animal lovers must not allow the seal of approval to be returned to this most revolting symbol of cruelty.

Officials are right to place animal welfare before Mariah Carey’s vanity - we must be equally firm in refusing to tolerate the abuse of any sentient creature.

Not-so-dumb blonde

by Alan Tyers

My favourite ongoing news story at the moment is that of the court case involving the squillionaire financier who is being sued for discrimination by a disgruntled former employee.

Jordan Wimmer, you may recall, claims that her mega-rich hedge fund boss Mark Lowe humiliated her by turning up to business events accompanied by scantily dressed hookers.

The case has now moved on with the news that Ms Wimmer is upset that he made a “dumb blonde” joke in a round-robin email. Even worse, she was suffering from depression at the time.

Mr Lowe doesn’t really seem like the sort of bloke a gal would be dying to take home to mum - and, judging from his picture, he might be well advised to keep his comments about other people’s appearance to a minimum.

But Ms Wimmer, for her part, sounds like she might be on shaky ground. How can you work in an environment like private equity - where short-term, aggressive, uncaring machismo is the name of the game - and not expect a bit of rough and tumble?

In an ideal word, we’d all treat our co-workers with respect and kindness at all times. But that’s a pipe dream, especially in a job that involves seeing the naked face of capitalism right up close and personal.

Jordan Wimmer joined Mark Lowe’s company in 2004 on a £50,000 salary; within four years she was making the best part of 600 grand a year. For that sort of money - and incredible salary increase - she should have been able to put up with a bit of argy-bargy.

Hail the people’s Gordon!

by Alan Tyers

It’s all hands to the pump for Gordon Brown as he attempts to save his sinking ship. Yesterday, we learned details of the forthcoming Queen’s Speech - a set of deliberately political, populist measures including putting the boot into bankers, snuggling up to the elderly, getting tough on knife crime and, for all we know, free jam for every reader and death squads for paedos.

Today, Brown is further playing to the gallery by suggesting that we might get the hell out of Afghanistan - something that the British public are polling very strongly in favour of.

It’s funny, now that this Government is in (presumably terminal) decline, it’s suddenly all about listening to what the punters want.

With British soldiers now dying in a hail of media attention, the PM reckons we should consider “a security handover” to the Afghans - i.e. sneak out of there as discretely as possible.

It was probably a bad idea to go to war there in the first place, but we decided to, and then we decided to stay. The situation does not appear to be getting any more, erm, secure - so why is it suddenly a good idea to get out?

There can be only one logical answer: Labour needs some quick political wins. What else can we expect between now and the general election? Anything populist and headline-grabbing, no matter the long-term implications, is my guess.

All full up?

by Greg McDonald

While the Prime Minister should have gone further in today’s landmark immigration speech and capped Britain’s population at 65 million, we should not confuse a balanced migration policy with racism.

Gordon Brown’s pledge that Britain’s population will not be allowed to exceed 70 million by 2029 is long overdue. But it at least breaks fundamentally with the sleepwalking policy of an out-of-touch political elite - typified by Home Secretary Alan Johnson’s infamously drowsy nights spent dreaming of the arrival of Britain’s 65 millionth citizen.

The balanced migration argument is not about ethnicity but numbers. Simply, most Britons believe our overcrowded island doesn’t have the space to build another Birmingham.

The solution? Britain should adopt a one-in-one-out balanced migration policy of the kind long supported by Conservative MP Nicholas Soames and Labour’s Frank Field, co-chairmen of the Cross Party Group for Balanced Migration.

But as the Government finally joins the immigration debate, the rest of us should be crystal clear that - however racist elements like the BNP seek to exploit our fear of change to stir up division and hatred - the issues of immigration and racism are wholly separate.

Britain’s 61 million citizens are richer for our cultural and human diversity, our tolerance and our pluralism. We just don’t have the room for another nine million people.

Shoplifters of the world...

by Alan Tyers

The middle-classes, when not high on cocaine, binge-drinking or being given life in prison for getting a parking ticket, are now apparently mad for the shoplifting.

A report from snappily-named security and merchandising specialists Checkpoint Systems NCE reckons that shoplifting is up 20% - costing businesses an eye-watering £4.9 billion a year.

Says that company’s spokesman: “We are seeing more instances of amateur thieves stealing goods for their own personal use rather than to sell-on.

“This is epitomised in the recent uprising of the middle-class shoplifter, someone who has turned to theft to sustain their standard of living, and this is driving theft of items such as cosmetics, perfumes and face creams, alcohol, fresh meat, mobile phones, computer games and DVDs as well as small electrical goods like cameras, iPods and personal care gadgets.”

What can be done about these crazed fiends, with their insatiable desire for meat and cosmetics?

Seems to me that this is a result in the growing sense of entitlement that we all have: everyone wants a lifestyle rich in consumer goods and nice things, and the freely available credit of the last generation made it dead easy to get things on the never-never. Now credit is harder to get, but demand is the same, so we’ll have to nick what is rightfully ours. I blame The X Factor.

Aside from inflated expectations of what is our right, or even our need, some goods are just ridiculously overpriced and cartelised. Maybe people are just sick of forking over a fortune for products that they know are massively marked-up by greedy retailers.

If I wasn’t such a chicken, here are some items I would definitely nick from supermarkets: bin bags; tissues; razor blades. The items are not, despite what it might sound like, to form the basis of some horrific murder / clean-up kit, but rather just things that always seem staggeringly overpriced.

Oh, and I’d definitely trouser a few bottles of contact lens solution if I could get away with it. Five quid for that? Come off it.

Brown letter day

by Alan Tyers

The ignoble sport of bear-baiting is alive and well: Gordon Brown has lurched into yet another crisis and his enemies at The Sun are getting stuck in.

The PM hand-wrote a letter to Jacqui Janes offering his condolences for the death in Afghanistan of her Grenadier Guardsman son, Jamie.

Brown managed to spell her name incorrectly, and made several other spelling (or handwriting) mistakes in the letter. Then - cringe, cringe - he phoned her up to say sorry, she recorded the conversation and handed it to The Sun. Manna from heaven to the Tory-backing boys in Wapping.

Personally, I think it’s a low blow: he wrote to her and phoned her personally and privately. I couldn’t argue that it’s not a matter of public interest, but it still seems a bit mean to serve him up to the unlovely red-top attack dogs.

Still, it certainly reveals a lot about the Prime Minister and his current state of mind. A lack of attention to detail, the inability to admit a mistake - “I think I was trying to say Janes, as your right name” - a total failure to communicate.

A more gifted politician and manipulator than Brown - Tony Blair, say, or Bill Clinton - would have played the card that he too has lost a child; or maybe even alluded to his disability and failing eyesight. It’s arguably to Brown’s credit that he didn’t. About all you can say is that he shouldn’t have written the letter if he can’t write her name correctly. It seems a modest amount to ask from the leader of the country.

Instead of grovelling, Brown tried to debate her on issues that she obviously knows a fair bit about, but is never going to bend on. That her son died because of underfunding is fixed 100% in her mind.

It’s not an argument he could ever win, and even if he could - who wants to defeat a grieving mother with stats and policy detail?

Berlin should inspire us all

by Greg McDonald

As world leaders gather in Germany today to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the miracle of reunification should embolden us to believe that bold, peaceful, democratic progress is possible when we have the courage to act as if it’s so.

For Berlin owes much of its success to precisely that spirit: manifested in the bravery of ordinary Germans who faced down a seemingly unbeatable foe, and to sage German leaders who put long-term security ahead of short-term advantage.

In Berlin today, however, world leaders should recognise that peace and prosperity in a united Germany did not happen in a vacuum - but as part of the wider European miracle, which has given an otherwise historically bloody continent 64 years of relative peace.

And, reflecting on the iconic images of Berliners’ triumph over fear and division 20 years ago, we in Britain would do well to reflect on how fortunate we are to be a part of that Europe - and, for all the European project’s defects, how essential it is that our future is at its heart.

The German miracle is so inspiring because so little is easier in life than saying “I can’t” - and, when it seems that way, still acting as if “I can”. Or in Gandhi’s formulation, to “be the change you wish to see in the world”.

Recalling the fall of the Wall, we can take heart that humanity constantly produces seemingly miraculous triumph over unbeatable odds - as anyone who saw David Haye’s Goliathan boxing victory this weekend will testify - and feel emboldened that progress is always possible if we act like it’s so.

Shame not jail

by Greg McDonald

The student caught on camera drunkenly urinating on war memorial poppy wreaths deserves the shame and humiliation he will live with for many years to come - but he shouldn’t go to jail.

Philip Laing has no excuses. His lawyers paint a picture of a student with a bright future, innocently caught up in a drinking culture and now struck with remorse. But being middle class doesn’t excuse you from equal treatment before the law, any more than downing 10 Stellas excuses you running the next-door neighbour down in the family car.

And as for remorse, it’s funny how so few of Laing’s fellow louts are as remorseful about the crimes that don’t get splashed across the front of national newspapers.

But while Laing’s misdeed is revolting, it’s also a single youthful mistake - and however disgusted we may feel, we should remember that few of us didn’t make a few mistakes of our own along the way.

Granted, many premeditated and evil crimes committed in Britain deserve a harsher punishment than our legal system has the resources or will to enforce. But as ugly as Laing’s drunken misdemeanor may be, his is not one of those.

The judge is right to hang the prospect of jail over Laing’s head for a fortnight while he awaits sentencing. But, while the student deserves his shame, in this instance – just for once – a custodial sentence would be excessive.

Who is David Cameron?

by Alan Tyers

PM-in-waiting David Cameron screwed Britain for the first time this morning: it probably will not be the last.

In September 2007, Cameron wrote in The Sun: “I will give this cast-iron guarantee: if I become PM a Conservative Government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations. No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum.”

That seems pretty clear to me.

Today, he has backtracked from that referendum promise and is attempting to sugar the pill with some tough talk about how he won’t let those nasty Eurocrats tell us what to do.

In a cunning stroke, Cameron has managed to make himself look like a weasel and a windbag.

Handed the biggest open goal any politician could dream of - putting the hopeless, unelected Gordon Brown out of his misery - Cameron has today given an unpleasant snapshot of what life will be like under his Tories.

I’m sure I’m not alone in being unsure what Cameron stands for or what his policies are. Is he a Eurosceptic? What will he do about our national debt? Will he cut taxes? What will he do about crime? How will he extricate our forces from Afghanistan?

I think it’s fair to say that most people are not clear. He needs to let the electorate know what his plans are once he comes to power, and try and convince people that he will stick to those commitments.

At the moment, the impression is of an opportunist who will say what he needs to say at any given time - and this u-turn doesn’t do anything to dispel that.

Mock horror

by Alan Tyers

The surprising thing about the row between Olympic double gold medal-winning swimmer Rebecca Adlington and the BBC is not that people are queuing up to be offended by Mock The Week panellist Frankie Boyle’s jokes, but that Adlington herself gives a hoot what he thinks or says.

Imagine the sheer willpower and strength of character that she must possess to get up before dawn every day of the year, train her guts out and bring home two gold medals at just 19 years old. It’s amazing that a couple of gags on a TV panel show are anything but water off a duck’s back.

Anyway, they obviously aren’t, because she has made a formal complaint about the BBC Trust’s response to the situation. Just to catch you up, the Trust rebuked Boyle for saying Adlington had a face “like someone looking at themselves in the back of a spoon” and speculating that the fact her boyfriend is much more attractive (according to Boyle) proves she must be “very dirty”. Adlington reckons Boyle got off too lightly.

The jokes were a bit mean, but I’m glad Boyle has the freedom to make them. It is, after all, only a joke, on a show that’s flagged up for having adult humour. However, the BBC Trust found that, in essence, Adlington was not fair game because she has not courted celebrity or fame.

I seem to remember Adlington appearing on A Question Of Sport and The Charlotte Church Show, and I note from her personal website that the swimmer has signed a deal to be “an official partner” with British Gas, presumably involving the utilities supplier giving her money in exchange for access to her name, image, time or status.

And why the hell not? Good luck to the woman if she wants to make a few quid after all her hard work - but it’s debatable that she has “not courted celebrity or fame”.

This stand-off is further ammunition for the BBC haters who won’t be happy until the entire shebang is shut down, and also for the country’s self-appointed moral guardians who spend their days looking for comics to be offended by.

A joke’s a joke; let Frankie Boyle - and Jimmy Carr, with his squaddie gags - get on with what they do.