Pig delivery to Downing St

Personally I think the whole shebang is pathetic and puts Lord Ashcroft in a very poor light.
I couldn't give a monkeys about any of them but this prank or whatever you want to call it is moronic and puerile. Prats is putting it mildly.
I despair of the lot of them.

So pathetic, not even worth a comment! Poor pig, I've kept pigs and yes they do suffer from stress particularly in a completely unnatural environment. Not exactly cruel, but almost certainly stressful and completely unnecessary. The owner should be ashamed.

How can you tell if a goose is calm or frozen with fear?

I'm amazed the police didn't take any action. There must have been something they could have them for.....Public nuisance? Inappropriate language in a public place? Causing an animal undue stress? Wasting police time?

I don't suppose being an oafish lout is a crime......Shame!

If it were a crime merlot Parliament would be half empty and Prime Minister's Question Time would be history (I wish)

How did they waste police time? The police didn't do anything other than stand there. It probably gave them something to do other than stand there looking bored.

Pigs are more intelligent than dogs. Just saying.

My other thought is that although I used to know rugby players, I had not heard before of such revolting 'initiation practices' either years ago or now.
I guess poor little 'Cameron Mi' as Boris Johnson remembered him at Eton ALLEGEDLY gave in to peer pressure. Eugh. New PM anyone?

What on earth have rugby players got to do with it?
Do they have weird initiation rites as well?

Does anyone know if it was in fact true?

As I said before, I heard years ago before he was well-known that Ashcroft is exceedingly vengeful, (allegedly, reputedly, reportedly etc). The poor pig, the innocent party in all this.
Were those two Ashcroft's henchmen? Who were they, do we know?

I thought my new thread was funny but no-one else commented, so never mind, I'm not upset.
ps I would think it was funny whatever parties were involved.

Heigh ho, different senses of humour.

I laughed at the sheer audacity of it.

What new thread, rose?

Oh dear, I'm going now before I make even more of a mess.

I've gone off it now, it did seem funny at the time:

www.gransnet.com/forums/news_and_politics/1219164-Politics-is-fun

It was the audacity that appealed to me too, ffinn, and the fact that the 'actors' managed to keep straight faces.

I'm sure the pig is back home and perfectly happy after its weird little outing in a dog crate.

Sorry, but I too think it caused unnecessary stress to the animal.

An experiment was done once involving weighing cattle then sending them to market (transported, as no doubt the pig was, but also put into the ring as if to be sold etc) and then weighing them again once they were "home".

The weight loss was quite considerable, and after calculations re food water etc was attributed to stress.

When I kept sheep I was very particular about their final journey, insisting that we took them ourselves and their slaughter time was booked for immediately after they were unloaded, to avoid absolutely ANY extra stress.

Completely pathetic, not even worth a comment. Poor pig. I've kept pigs and they do suffer from stress particularly out of their familiar environment. Not exactly cruel, but stressful for the pig and completely of order to use an animal for a prank.

Sorry for the repetition! I thought the post had been lost!!

What do you think about people who have pet pigs?
How do you know it wasn't one of those?

Sorry DJ- this was clearly not a pet pig. A pet pig would have had a proper harness and wouldn't squeal like that when picked up if it was used to it and that human. In this case, we will have to disagree. It was a cheap, stupid and cruel stunt- and sadly, totally counter-productive as many will use/misuse this as an example of what Corbyn's 'new' voters are like.

Not disagreeing, granjura. I thought it was cruel as well. Being vegetarian, I would. But my first thought on seeing it was wondering if it was a rescue pig which are often used as pets.
I didn't think they were Corbyn voters. I thought they were possibly just anarchists.

Good, as I truly respect you. I thought they were anarchists too- my point is that some will picture them as 'typical new labour supporters'- for all the wrong reasons. The Labour party has to be very careful to distance themselves from this sort of stupid and vengeful behaviour. Radical politics, yes- but this is not helpful, at all imho.

I think it was a bit daft and possibly a little unfair on the pig - but not so stressful as an abattoir is likely to be.

Such concern for the welfare of the pig I feel assured there will be the same concern for the fox when our fox hunting PM and his party try to bring back fox hunting

There certainly would be ab.

Eleothan abbatoirs are necessary - if we are to enjoy a Sunday roast dinner of delicious pork with crackling. The silly joke was not necessary.

it's not just about the welfare of the young pig- but about the stunt being cheap, tacky and stupid- and very probably counter-productive.

Attack the man on his policies indeed, just not a clever or effective way to do it imho.