MPs have spent much of the week mistreating herbivorous lambs such as Nick Clegg and Ken Clarke
On an otherwise sleepy Thursday, MPs of all shapes and sizes worked themselves into a spontaneous hissy fit over the treatment of wild animals in European circuses. They were particularly concerned about big tent activity in Austria, a country whose inhabitants, on two legs or four, have rarely troubled the outside world since the fall of the Habsburgs.
Apart from the Austrian angle, theuproar was odd for two reasons. One, many animal-loving MPs have spent much of the week mistreating ministers suspected of harbouring vaguely liberal tendencies, herbivorous lambs such as Nick Clegg and Ken Clarke cornered by coalition wolves. Two, in the protesting about the inhumane treatment of animals they demonstrated the enduring appeal of bear-baiting.
The baited bear in question was the junior agriculture minister, Farmer Jim Paice, as mangy an old ursine as you would find in a Libyan zoo after three months of Nato bombing. Circuses are not actually Jim's departmental responsibility at Defra (Lord Henley is the designated fall-guy), but their boss, Caroline ("sell those forests") Spelman, was luckily absent, inspecting flood prevention works in Yorkshire: hard rain will surely follow the Curse of Spelman.
But at Defra question time last week Paice was ambushed and gave an inaccurate answer about attempts to take the Austrian government to court over its ban on wild animals in circuses.
Yesterday it gave an opportunity for Labour's take-no-prisoners spokeswoman, Mary Creagh, to chain him to a stake and set the backbench dogs on the old boy. Horrible, but everyone except Farmer Jim had a good time. To the charge that the coalition's failure to ban wild animals in British circuses – there are 39 – is a pathetic piece of dithering, Paice's defence was that Whitehall lawyers had advised him that such a ban might be disproportionate under the European Union services directive, not to mention Labour's own Human Rights Act. Proceedings against the Austrian government's ban might not actually be under way (they were dropped in 2005), but the European Circus Association (sic) insists a case is imminent.
Laugh, fume or cry? MPs did all three. The brutal Creagh (is she, by chance, related to the Kray brothers?) called it "another all-singing, all-dancing disaster by the worst performing department" in Whitehall and dismissed Defra's circus licensing option as pathetic. Labour lefties such as Dave Watts, who sincerely believes that coalition ministers "like torturing animals," piled in. So did Labour righties like John Spellar who would cheerfully torture MPs who defy the party whip. Green leader, Caroline Lucas, called Paice cowardly.
Battling Bob Russell, the Afghan squaddie's pal, led the Lib Dem pack biting Jim the Threadbear. Rightwing Tories who loathe the EU and human rights culture got caught up in the frenzy, probably imagining it was the justice secretary whose bones they had between their yellow teeth. When Paice referred to Ann, the elephant abused in winter quarters in Northants, as Nellie, MPs were further outraged by this blatant act of mammalian stereotyping. Nellie the Elephant ! What next ? Rover the Dog? Felix the crossbred spotted tabby? The tabloids will not readily forgive the slight. Paice will be lucky not to be spayed.
Strange to report, MPs had spent the previous hour in a state of trance-like docility. Given the prospect of tormenting Chris Huhne, the (alleged) Mr Toad of the M11, over motoring offences (alleged), they behaved like French politicians and pretended nothing had happened. Instead they quizzed Huhne about the green deal and other earnest environment causes. It left us wondering what he might have had to do for French MPs to make a fuss. Commandeer a Boeing 747 at Stansted after several inflight beverages and drive it home down the M11 with Dominic Strauss-Kahn in the co-pilot's seat?