Banned wagon
A weekly survey of the things our rulers want to prohibit
IF the 1997 intake of MPs is distin- guished by anything, it is by its obses- sion with animal rights. In the general furore over fox-hunting, bans on mink- farming and hare-coursing are passing almost unnoticed. The latest target may incite more comment, though. It is the circus. Bob Laxton, Labour MP for Derby North, along with 33 other most- ly Labour MPs, has tabled a motion deploring 'the use of live animals as circus acts'.
Whether they believe that dead ani- mals would make more acceptable acts they don't say, but the MPs have called on their constituents to boycott perfor- mances by the Circus King Company, which has recently been on tour in the Midlands complete with an eight-year- old bear called Little Fred. There is no suggestion that the company has been maltreating the animal: the MPs' objec- tion appears to be linked to an asser- tion that enticing bears to perform 'is a practice that harks back to the Dark Ages'. In other words, it dates from some time between the last days of Rome to the Renaissance, and there- fore it must be wrong.
But then there are many other prac- tices that date from the so-called Dark Ages: Christian worship, parliamentary government, trial by jury. Does this mean they are necessarily wrong, too? Mr Laxton and his accomplices are per- haps hoping that last year's conviction of Mary Chipperfield on 12 counts of cruelty towards a performing chimp has helped to shift public opinion in their favour, the implication being that ani- mals will perform only if they are fright- ened. But, if that is the case, where does it leave the man who throws fish to the penguins in London Zoo and the dog owner who throws a stick and shouts Tetch!'?
Ross Clark
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