WintonsWorld-BBC Diary

“Wouldn’t you think that of all social groups, religions would be concerned that animals were slaughtered humanely?”

“The next time you are asked if you have any special dietary requirements, reply, “No Hallal meat please”

     According to the BBC, a leading vet believes 25 per cent of British meat is now sold as Hallal and that this cruel practice should be banned.

    The law allows religions to have Hallal meat, but what kind of purveyors of medieval mumbo-jumbo would think this old, not say totally pointless practice was a good thing to demand at the expense of cruel and unusual suffering by animals. The answer is Muslims and Jews.

What kind of country has laws that protect animals from cruelty, but then waives them when confronted by ludicrous religious practice? Surely, that is what the law is for. What possible reason can there be for our government not to insist that this cruel practice should stop? (I already know the answer, cowardice and political correctness). I’ve asked my MP Nick Herbert why this is allowed to continue. I received the usual bland bollox in reply.  He said the E.U. is looking into this. Don’t hold your breath for action.

Animal welfare laws must be enforced, regardless of religion. It’s not as if this dispensation for Muslims and Jews achieves anything other than the continuation of an outdated policy which has long been shown to be unnecessary by science. Wouldn’t you think that of all social groups, religions would be concerned that animals were slaughtered humanely?

Painful, cruel, unnecessary

Hallal killing insists that animals are not stunned, but have their throats slit, so the blood drains from their bodies. Death takes a long time. It is obviously painful, cruel and unnecessary. The animals must of course be facing Mecca while this happens. (I’m not sure if Jews insist that dying animals face in a particular direction.) This is justified because some medieval thinkers, before science was invented, thought blood was somehow dangerous for humans in animal meat. It has clearly outlived its usefulness.

Religions have been given a special dispensation from animal cruelty laws. This is an outdated law which in the name of ending unnecessary cruelty to animals, should be ended forthwith.

The practise is growing because it is more convenient for companies which provide packaged food for airlines and the like to produce one type of food. It is easier for them to produce hallal, so that when Muslims and Jews insist on it, they can easily provide it. Britons should demand some action.

Here’s one thing you can do. The next time you are asked if you have an special dietary requirements, reply, “No Hallal meat please”. If we all do that, we can do something to bring this practice which shames us all, to an end.

Hollande Loves FDR
    BBC Radio 4 this morning said U.S. President Franklin D Roosevelt was a hero of French Presidential hopeful Francois Hollande. FDR was the architect of the New Deal in the 1930s which is often described as the policy which saved the American economy from the Great Depression. I did an economics course at Leicester University in the late 1960s in which this conventional wisdom was accepted without question. It is only recently that I have become aware that, far from saving the U.S. economy, FDR’s overspending socialism, high tax, state intervention, insistence on bureaucratic organisations and price controls, meant that recovery from the depression was delayed by about 10 years. The recovery stuttered and only really gained traction because of the second world war. Don’t expect to hear this contrary (and true) view expressed on the BBC any time soon, if Hollande starts to put some of his hero’s plans into action.