Banned wagon
A weekly survey of the things our rulers want to prohibit THERE isn't believed to be a large Eskimo community in Britain, but any who reside here may find that they have an excellent case for racial discrimination.
It is not usual these days for a government minister to go out of his way to slight the way of life of an entire ethnic grouping, but that is exactly what the animal welfare minister Elliot Morley did when announcing that the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Act 2000 will come into force on 1 January next year.
'I am pleased that fur farming will be banned from 2003,' he said. `Fur farming is not consistent with a proper value and respect for animal life and it is right and proper for the government to have introduced this ban.'
In other words, all peoples who live on the world's northern fringes, and who have survived there thanks only to wearing animal fur, must by definition be guilty of disrespecting animals, which, to judge by this government's legislative programme, is just about the worst offence man may commit. Indeed, so obsessed are Labour's MPs with saving furry little animals that one wonders whether they are not emotionally stuck in their bunny-lined cots.
Those with a preference for leather shoes have been assured that they need not worry — for the moment at least. The onward march of veganism can go only so many steps at a time. Cattle farmers may continue to sell the animals' hides for clothing and other uses on the basis that the ban will apply only to those who keep animals 'solely or primarily for slaughter for the value of their fur'.
This does perhaps leave a small loophole which brave mink farmers may yet use to save their businesses. Wanted: a television chef who can succeed in concocting and popularising a recipe for
medallions of mink. Ross Clark
Previous page
