A British rapper and talent show judge has called for a total ban on the production and consumption of meat and tobacco, signalling a desire for widespread and punitive legislation that would deprive hundreds of thousands of a livelihood and millions of basic consumer choice.
The questionable remarks came in an otherwise perfectly ordinary ‘celebrity’ interview with the Home supplement of the Daily Mail for Alesha Dixon, in which the entertainer made several revelations including a “guilty pleasure” for television programme The Only Way is Essex, and that she steals food from other people’s plates when dining out.
Yet the tone changed markedly as the celebrity signalled her distaste for the preferences and habits of the vast majority of ordinary Britons when asked: “what law would you change if you could?”.
Responding, the millionaire vegetarian stated: “I would make smoking illegal and I would ban the slaughter of animals for food or anything… make it illegal to smoke or eat meat.”
Remarking “I’d close down every factory responsible for either”, the R&B singer’s response did not make it clear whether she was aware that meat and tobacco is actually produced on farms, rather in factories.
Approximately 466,000 people work on commercial farms in the United Kingdom, exporting £20 billion worth of food and drink a year.
Despite the huge importance of the agriculture sector — a large part of which works in rearing meat and producing dairy — and the clear preference for meat as food among the majority of Brits, Dixon loftily insisted that after the sweeping changes to ban meat “Everyone would be fine, trust me!”
Her comments come among increasing pressure in the West over the consumption of meat, with attempts to encourage consumers to “take the pledge” and undertake “veganuary” vying for space with the already well established ‘dry January’ pledge to cut alcohol intake for health reasons.
Yet Breitbart London has reported on moves against vegan diets in Italy, where politicians proposed legislation that would see parents who forced veganism on their children jailed. Slamming “radicalised” vegans who deprived their children of “essential elements for healthy growth” centre-right politician Elvira Savino explained her law was intended to “definitively stigmatise reckless and dangerous dietary conduct imposed by parents” on their children.
In 2011, a French couple were charged with child neglect after their baby died of vitamin deficiencies. They had tried to raise her on a vegan diet.
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