Latest Site News

[Brett-Butler]

You know that we're into silly season in the media landscape when a news story like this rises near the top of the agenda.

Apparently, people in the UK are eating dogs. Actually, there's no evidence that people in the UK are eating dogs, but that's not stopping an SNP MP, who wants to see the eating of dogs banned in the UK.

By now you're probably thinking, "but Brett-Butler, you incredibly witty and charismatic fellow, isn't eating dog already banned in the UK?" Well firstly, thank you for the compliment. However, it turns out that there is a loophole in the law as it stands. It is currently illegal to buy and to sell dog meat. However, according to a recent Buzzfeed article, there is no law against eating your own pet if you kill it in a humane way. And of course, there's a bit of immigrant-bashing in the story as well, as the fear is that eating dog will increase due to people moving to the UK from cultures, such as eastern Asia, where eating dog isn't considered a taboo.

I can see the reasoning behind amending the law on this issue, although legislating for this doesn't seem quite necessary at the moment, as there doesn't seem to be any widespread evidence of people actually eating dog. Of course, as someone who knows far too much about human psychology, now that the story is out in the open, and people are aware of where the law stands and that it might change, the Streisand Effect dictates that in the next few months, we may see a rise in people eating their pooches because they now know that a) it is legal, and b) they will no longer be able to do so, so will try to take advantage of this before the law changes.

Personally, I could never eat dog meat, as I quite like dogs, and it doesn't look like the meat you'd get from them would be nice. So what are your thoughts on this? A silly season much ado about nothing story, or something that needs to be changed by law?


And as I know that this will be the first comment, let me be the first to make a "well if we leave the EU without a deal, we'll have no food so will have to eat our dogs" remark.