Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
From ‘The Second Coming’, W.B. Yeats.
I am not sure I can continue to read yesterday’s newspaper. Bearing in mind that Elon Musk gave an unequivocal Nazi salute, twice, at Trump’s inauguration which provided living proof that the populace is now ruled by corporations (I think the thin veil of democracy is well and truly shredded now), I have no words to express my contempt for dangerous tax liar Rachel Reeves who has said that we need to learn from Trump’s positivity and revive the “animal spirits” whatever the hell she means by that. Many businesses are struggling terribly following her national insurance hikes, either shedding jobs or freezing recruitment or both. She is even in favour of a third runway at Heathrow, Growth, growth, growth. Has she forgotten about net-zero altogether? If that seems an exaggeration, in the quickfire section of an interview with her spread over two pages, she answers “Bats or great crested newts?” with “Neither because I want growth.” On the second page I read that the country’s second largest water company, Severn Trent, is massively increasing its customers bills, by 47% between now and 2030. Dwr Cymru Welsh Water is doing much the same. We cannot trust these companies actually to spend on infrastructure but we can be absolutely sure that shareholders’ dividends will go up. Thames Water remains on the verge of bankruptcy with a £16bn debt and wants to squeeze even more from us.
The photo at the head of this post of an Avocet, the RSPB’s logo, is taken from Animal Wild.
The RSPCA and the RSPB are both in trouble, floundering and under a great deal of flak from people who would naturally and normally be supporters. I am a member only of the latter. I took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch for them yesterday and felt bamboozled. The strong implication was that the only way to take part was to use the Birda app, which immediately excluded anyone not au fait with such things. I already had the app installed on my phone but even signing in was a nightmare and I found the whole thing counter-intuitive and difficult to use, and I consider myself very computer literate. All you had to do was submit the summary to the RSPB after the hour was up. That must mean, I thought, that there will be a button to click on Birda, job done. But no, it was a case of visiting the RSPB website and manually entering the data there. Birda was a complete red herring. I had only dabbled therein once or twice but felt constantly pressured to pay for premium features and was bombarded with e-mails. I have now uninstalled it. No doubt it works for some and is by no means all bad, but it is not for me. Presumably the RSPB struck a deal with Birda and if that means income for the beleaguered charity all well and good, but why not at least be upfront about it? There is more on them in yesterday’s post about Birdwatch magazine which includes a thoughtful piece by Lucy McRobert worrying, as many are doing, about the potential abandonment of their core values.
My results were very disappointing. I saw only a fraction of my usual visitors and it is very quiet again today. I am deeply concerned that the recent storms and cold snaps have taken a terrible toll. Two Dunnocks, not four, no Jackdaws, with their rather sinister charm, at all yesterday and only two so far today (there are usually at least half a dozen), very few Blue or Great Tits and House Sparrows (two or three rather than regular little flocks), the Chaffinch has disappeared again, no Collared Doves, no Magpie, no Great Spotted Woodpecker – ah, but the Woodpecker has just turned up in all his splendour (those flashes of red bewitch me every time) and the feeders are getting much busier. Their resilience is remarkable.
Both charities should surely drop “royal” from their titles. It’s putting the lunatics in charge of the asylum. Following the resignations of Chris Packham et al. because of the flagrant hypocrisy of their meaningless labelling of farm produce (like Red Tractor, it’s actually worse than meaningless since it gives a false sense of security when it comes to animal welfare) and an Animal Justice Project via PETA exposé of a boar farm in Norfolk where the pigs are kept in appalling, filthy, barren and dark conditions to be cruelly milked for their semen, used in RSPCA assured farms, where they are beaten and abused in almost unimaginable ways and, if they are deemed ‘uncooperative’ or insufficiently productive sent off for slaughter, after all this, the society has the sheer brass neck to ask us to contact our MPs to demand better product labelling. That would of course be a very good thing in principle but is currently pointless in practice. Food producers lie, of course they do. Dolphin-friendly tuna? No one checks, no one really knows. The RSPCA even approves environmentally devastating salmon farms. As it happens I don’t eat any porcine produce but ultimately I need to take another step and stop consuming animal products altogether. There is no other way for it all to end – greed will always trump animal welfare. I cannot begin to justify or excuse my continuing consumption of dairy products, chicken and fish, but not red meat any more – it’s not enough but at least I feel guilty about it.
The link in the RSPCA’s emails leads you to this, which for pure mendacity takes some serious beating. Who do they think they are kidding?
“There is no mandatory UK legislation covering meat and dairy labelling. Currently, the vast majority of labels on food products don’t provide a clear description of how the animal was reared or the welfare standards applied to the animals. The introduction of mandatory labelling of food products has the potential to transform consumer behaviour and buying patterns, contributing to improved levels of animal welfare overall.” The letter to MPs reads: “We’re supporting the introduction of two types of labels that will inform consumers about:
- How that animal was kept
- How that animal was killed
We believe the development of a clear and accessible food labelling system will reflect consumer desire for greater transparency over how food is produced. Giving consumers a choice when buying food products can have a direct impact on animal welfare.”
But we know now that the RSPCA doesn’t give a flying fig about farm animals, other than as an income stream.
As Chris Packham said, there has been “no meaningful change” after “years of… pushing for reform within the Assured Schemes … I believe the charity has lost sight of its mandate to protect all animals from cruelty and suffering.” Caroline Lucas who also resigned with a heavy heart said, “The recent horrific revelations of abuse at RSPCA-approved slaughterhouses, filmed undercover by Animal Rising, were the final straw for me. The systemic cruelty exposed was unbearable to witness. While the RSPCA’s response was to suspend the implicated facilities and launch yet another investigation, they failed to confront the deeper flaws of the scheme itself. This approach not only fails to uphold their own standards but also risks misleading the public and legitimising cruelty.”
We can only hope that campaigners objections to a proposal to build a megafarm, also in Norfolk, which would accommodate some 48,000 pigs and 6.5 million chickens per year, are successful.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre …
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