Tesco, a multi-national British retailer of merchandise, has knuckled under to a small cadre of animal rights activists and removed a child’s party costume from their lineup of party wares. The item, feared to “encourage children to become animal abusers,” is a scarlet foxhunting tailcoat that sells for £10.41.

Do activists in Britain speak out against Frankenstein or Dracular costumes, as well? Or is it better to be a monster than a foxhunter? What about a military costumes? Will that “encourage children to become” warmongers? It’s all so silly.

Aren’t there more potentially dangerous children’s products on the open market against which activist’s attention might be more fruitfully directed? I mean, if one has to be an activist. Don’t ask me what, though. I prefer the French approach: chacun a son gout. Why must everyone in a country be browbeaten into the same uniform mindset about every subject?

Tim Bonner, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, challenged Tesco to think hard about bowing to intimidation from animal rights activists.

“From the hundreds of pubs named for huntsmen, hounds and foxes to the ‘whips’ in the House of Commons, it is simply impossible to eradicate hunting from British life,” Bonner said. “There will be hundreds of children out hunting this Saturday as many hunts come to the end of their season. They will not have brought their coats from Tesco, but they will be taking part in a thriving, legal pastime which is indelibly written into British culture and its countryside.”

For more on this sorry news item, click for Olivia Rudgard’s complete article in The Telegraph.

Posted March 11, 2018