The Political Thread

[Dandontdare]

CCTV in abattoirs the only policy I'd support on that list - it would save the need for the undercover infiltration and filming which always finds scenes of horrific abuse in this "well regulated" industry.

Halal, Kosher and "western" methods can all be humane if done properly or can all be cruel if botched, but using animal welfare as a thinly veiled cover for her obvious islamaphobia is disgraceful.

[ZenArcade]

Aye she's the quare fucking eejit that one. Z

[Theblazeuk]

but I object to Butchers having to join a cult to stay commercially viable due to the big businesses switching to halal for expediency.

There is no difference between standard UK-legal slaughter and halal slaughter of pre-stunned animals, other than the use of a 'blessed'* blade and the fact that the wielder must be muslim. None. The difference is that I can eat either, but muslims can only eat one.

That's not 'joining a cult', that's picking one of two processes that are indistinguishable in all practical senses but which serves the largest number of customers.

Cheers

Jim


*For want of the correct word, which I'll confess I can be arsed to google.

Jim - just reworded what I said and what I don't like: "wielder must be muslim" which will happen because  "picking one of two processes that are indistinguishable in all practical senses but which serves the largest number of customers."

Not sure what you think I'm confused about?

[Jim_Campbell]

Not sure what you think I'm confused about?

I didn't say you were confused. I felt that "joining a cult" was inflammatory language and inappropriate in what is really very much a non-issue. You are entitled to feel differently.

Cheers

Jim

[Theblazeuk]

Only [Religion X] can be [Trade] because the non-religious don't care but the religious do.

I think that's an issue. I'm not sure how you resolve it.

[Tiplodocus]

I would like to think that even if you had a brilliantly regulated and run slaughter houses, having CCTV in themwould still lead to an increase in vegetarianism.

BUt she does sound... conflicted and confused.

[The Legendary Shark]

In the past, farmers would slaughter their own livestock, avail themselves of travelling slaughtermen or use local abattoirs. Farmers would know, either personally or through professional networks, the people tasked with the job. They were unlikely to use cruel or clumsy people for this task.
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Nowadays slaughterhouses are large affairs and kill hundreds or even thousands of animals every day. The slaughterman has become an anonymous figure and the slaughter itself is carried out behind closed doors.
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Whilst there is a certain twisted logic in the idea of having cctv in abattoirs, I don't think it's the answer at all. To my mind, the problem is the sheer scale of modern operations and the dehumanising effect it has on slaughtermen. I don't even want to imagine what it must be like to have to kill a hundred animals every day.
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I'll hold up my hand and admit that, when I was a kid, I had an air rifle and did for many sparrows and the like. I was once even paid by a local mechanic to wipe out two families of bluetits because they'd built nests in his workshop and were shitting on his clients' vehicles. This "job" was the last time I ever killed anything on purpose because it suddenly, and for the first time, overwhelmed me with guilt. Only a few years later I accidentally hit a duck with my car, injuring but not killing it. I pulled over with the intention of putting the duck out of its misery but simply couldn't bring myself to do it. The farmer whose duck this was appeared and, with infinite gentle care, picked up the animal and broke its neck quickly and cleanly. He was upset but not angry and treated the duck with compassion and respect,
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By industrialising slaughter I think we have minimised that compassion and respect. In my view, the answer is not cctv or magic knives but a return to smaller scale operations.

[JamesC]

Well said Sharky, I completely agree with that.
I think I'd also add that there's become a disconnection between food and where it comes from in the minds of the public.
I've tried to think a little more deeply about where my food comes from of late. I often pop over to the local M&S for lunch and where I'd once have picked up the first chicken or ham sandwich I came across I'm now searching out the vegetarian choices. I'm not vegetarian but I can't quite get my head around the sheer amount of chickens that must be killed just for M&S sandwiches alone. It seems crazy. Of course the vast amount of people buying these products will never think about it.

[Jim_Campbell]

In my view, the answer is not cctv or magic knives but a return to smaller scale operations.

I absolutely agree, and have said so in the past on this very forum.

Cheers

Jim

[Theblazeuk]

Much as I love being able to make a ham sandwich for relatively cheap, that would be for the best. Maybe even just back a few decades.

[IndigoPrime]

Mrs G used to work for a place that manufactured industrial ovens. One day, they had a major fast-food chain in, and nipped out to a supermarket to get some chicken to mess about with. The chain noted that while the ovens were good, they'd need to do the tests again, because the "wrong calibre of chicken" had been bought.

You also see similar in Nando's, which hand-wrings statements about animals by arguing people have a certain expectation regarding costs. If only the west could be encouraged to eat bugs. That'd solve a lot of problems.

[Professor Bear]

The Daily Mail is why God invented suicide bombers.  I shan't link to it because I don't want them getting the clicks - they get plenty of those from pedophiles searching for pictures of underage girls - but the Mail Online apparently has a big story rubbishing the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon for building a hospital.  It gets better - they're furious that they built a hospital when the English NHS "faces its most difficult year in history" (can't imagine why that might be).

[JudgeOiNK!]

A few years ago a young school girl was killed by a large, thick branch falling from a tree she was sitting under.  It was a tragic accident and a horrible thing to happen.  The Daily Mail had a huge headline on their website blaming her teachers for her death as they were out on strike that day, so "the girl should've been in school".  Horrible, Hitler-loving rag, that "news"paper.

[Professor Bear]

The Mail's owner, Viscount Rothermere, is a tax dodger whose money goes out of the country to accrue interest in other territories rather than re-entering the UK economy, so those who buy the Daily Mail are helping him to literally destroy Britain.

[JudgeOiNK!]

Yet it'll be the first paper to "expose" tax dodgers, unless of course it's themselves or Conservative Party members, just people they don't actually like.  My word, recently they ran a (very inaccurate - surprise, surprise) story on the new Thunderbirds Are Go kids' show.  They called it a CGI cartoon and reported they'd changed everything, and didn't include any information on all the respectful things it does for the original's fans.  They brutally attacked it as it was "destroying a British institution", and the comments from its readers - my god!  Such hatred!  It's a TV show.  A children's one at that.  Just shows the calibre of people who buy it.