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Roula Khalaf, editor of FT, chooses her favorite story in this weekly newsletter.
For the fans of political escorts – or it should be cats – Scotland politics was a delight this week. John Swinney, the first first Scottish National Party, is drawn into the Farsic attempt to kill the news that is likely to alienate a huge proportion of voters in the nation of the obsessed pets: that he will announce the war to the ownership of cats.
The ban on Moggie scares from one of the proposals in the Scottish Government report by its independent animal benefits Advisers. The authors of the report are concerned about the deaths of other creatures in the hand or the paw of home donkeys – especially the birds. But as the story took off, the recommendations for considering “retention” of cats in some rural areas – maybe on the inside, maybe on a leash – became a conspiracy for the Government to take a massive lovers of Kaledonian cats and their pets.
An increasingly annoyed Swinney asked, wherever he went and any real -life policy that was there to promote: Will you take away the little things?
It’s a bizarre repair for SNP leader to find. Every time he tries to kill cats, he draws attention to more concerned fans of fencing: Is there, despite his words, a danger to their beloved pets? Occasionally his form of words- “no intention of limiting the ownership of cats”- a sound on a cynically ear like what is known in policy Trade as “denial denying.” So far, everyone knows that “without plans” coding for “we just haven’t written it and activated it”.
To the barricades! Stocks of cat food and cushion cats cats! And here I should declare interest as a cat’s life lover, together with 4mn others, as a follower of the account “why should the cat” X (it would be unfair to note that Swinney has far less followers, so I will draw my claws).
But I find that this story is convincing as a comic example of one of the most powerful disasters that can put on a politician – get stuck in a shudder loop of unconvincing refutation on topics that hurt you.
The most vocal echo returns to Lyndon Johnson’s Machins and his way of watching rivals in the 1948 Senate race – which Hunter with Thompson was best written about campaigns of dirty tricks. The apocryphal or not, the story says that LBJ insisted that his assistants wider the rumor that this man, a pig farmer, had “routine equal knowledge of his sows.” They opposed it to be untrue, only that their boss produced an answer that became axiomatic for the campaigns: “Let the bastard die.”
This was Trump’s Avant La Lettre – Think of “eat dogs.. They eat cats” in discussing the 2024 presidential election. With Kamal Harris, smearing immigrants in Ohio Springfield.
Of course, concern about the slaughter of wildlife set by the advisory panel Swinney will not disappear. Homemade cats are effective predators-the laws had a container known as the “Dead Bird Bag.” We have adopted our own two mobiles to keep the crowd of angry mice. Humphrey, a government cat based in a 1989 cabinet, was charged with the “murder” of some babies Robins – but his honor was vehemently defended by civil servants.
The records of this “scandal” are as cute and Fey as the Fand that surrounds Larry, the current cat Downing Street cat. Maybe it would be enough for you to turn you against cat fans, if not the animal itself. Then, Larry’s photoshop is a healthy export industry for the UK. Maybe Swinney should have the right Mouser in the official residence of Bute House, not the least important to relieve doubt in the last few days. And more, it would be safe from Trump 2.0 – you can’t slap the tariff on Twee.
