What do badgers, an infectious deadly disease of the respiratory system and Queen lead guitarist Brian May all have in common? The answer: they are all destroying Britain’s cattle and dairy farming industry, forcing thousands of animals to be slaughtered, and putting human health at serious risk.

Brian May, 61, has joined a campaign to stop the proposed badger cull in Wales. May, a candidate for the Higher Rate of my Celebrity Tax if ever I saw one, believes that the cull “would be genocide”.

“To me countries do not matter. Badgers are not British they belong to the world and they belong to everyone,” he said. He told press that the cull programme made no more sense than if it could be proved that by killing all ginger-haired people small pox could be eradicated. “Anyone would think that doing that was insane but that is what we are proposing to do to badgers. Well that’s how I feel about it anyway.”

Badgers are also not humans, so to call it “genocide” and compare it to “culling ginger people” is plain daft. Now I perfectly understand people liking badgers – they’re incredibly cute – but the problem is they carry TB.

Mycobacterium bovis is an aerobic bacterium and the causative agent of tuberculosis in cattle (known as bovine TB). Related to M. tuberculosis—the bacteria which causes tuberculosis in humans—M. bovis can also jump the species barrier and cause tuberculosis in humans.[Wikipedia]. In 2007 a man died and five others infected when Bovine TB crossed into humans.

Now there’s a scientific dispute about whether culling badgers will reduce bovine TB, and indeed whether badgers are to blame. Although I personally think they are to blame and a cull will reduce infections – as the badgers transport the disease across farm boundaries – my real problem here is with May. Who even asked him for his opinion and what on Earth does he know anyway? Clearly nothing.

1. You can be arrested for having an argument with a ticket inspector.
2. You will be warned by Police officers for waving a quickly grabbed knife through your kitchen window at youths trespassing in your garden.
3. Children can’t play in the snow at school due to “health and safety”.
4. Councils blame the Government because the Government didn’t make them stockpile grit-salt, even though it’s their responsibility.
5. Clearing the snow yourself could end up with a legal case against you.

Suggestions welcome for next time.

Cartoon of the Day: No 5 in series.

Over recent years the 4×4 driver has come under a lot of stick, as the three-proonged evils of eco-socialism, envy and class war came together under the banner of ’saving the planet’ to attack what they dubbed in masterful spin ‘Chelsea Tractors’.

Their owners became subject of hate, responsible allegedly for warming the planet, poisoning the air with toxic pollution, causing accidents and hogging the roads due to ‘excessive size’. In truth all of this was just an excuse for envy and hate, and the 4×4 haters showed it big time. Taxes were raised, a campaign to make them socially unacceptable gained traction, and there were even demands to ban the 4×4 completely.

Driving a 4×4 you can see a noticeable difference in people’s reaction and response to you. They are more hostile, less friendly, less likely to back up if they meet you on a single width lane, more likely to make you drive into a hedge to let them have enough room for a bus to pass. I borrowed a Range Rover for a day and the difference was even more noticable than with my usual Land Rover.

Recently in town an otherwise normal looking woman leapt in shock, ran to the edge of the pavement outside M&S as if something was serious and, without any embarassment, yelled aggressively at the top of her voice at my passing car “Get back to the countryside!” (She didn’t however yell “Get back to the scrapyard at the empty double decker bus, running via taxpayer subsidy).

But now South East England is covered in snow, and with cars trapped by icy roads and snow drifts the reaction to 4×4’s has dramatically changed. From villains to heroes in one snow storm.

Where have all the 4×4 haters gone I wonder?

Cartoon of the Day: No 4 in series.

Cartoon of the Day: No 3 in series.

Cartoon of the Day: No 2 in series.

Cartoon of the Day: No 1 in series.