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>When it was unclear how easily pets could transmit the virus to humans, the UK government considered ‘that we might have to ask the public to exterminate all t

>When it was unclear how easily pets could transmit the virus to humans, the UK government considered ‘that we might have to ask the public to exterminate all the cats in Britain’. I know this is probably true but it just sounds so ridiculous.

rsynnott 3y ago
So, _allegedly_, according to a junior minister, some minister suggested a Cat Genocide, yeah. Important context is that the government at the time had a _huge_ number of junior ministers, and due to the Tory party's constant purges over the last decade most of them were rather new inexperienced not-super-competent MPs. "Random Tory MP has stupid idea, talks about it stupidly" is a far cry from "War on Cats seriously considered as actual government policy".
- lostlogin 3y ago
  > due to the Tory party's constant purges over the last decade most of them were rather new inexperienced not-super-competent MPs. "Random Tory MP has stupid idea, talks about it stupidly" I really don’t believe that the broadcasting of stupid ideas was/is due to inexperience. Some of their most ludicrous crap was from their experienced MPs.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    I think the purges also filtered out a lot of the more competent experienced MPs. Particularly in the Johnson era; quite a lot of people effectively got the boot for insufficient faith in Dear Leader.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  It's also worth noting that "Government has a terrifying plan!!!!" is dumb fear mongering. You would HOPE your government has experience and practice war gaming and planning and simulating very very scary situations, because that's when you need them to work the most! That's the reason the US has war plans against "Canada" and "Britain", for training and practice and experimenting, not because we seriously think King Charles is a HOI4 player with eyes for the former colonies.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    This doesn't appear to have been the _government_ though, it was a 'minister' (and given how replete Johnson's government was with pointless junior ministers, that likely really just means a random MP). It's unlikely the actual apparatus of government was in any way involved in this; no civil servant was writing policy papers on poisoning Whiskas or anything.

rsynnott 3y ago

So, _allegedly_, according to a junior minister, some minister suggested a Cat Genocide, yeah. Important context is that the government at the time had a _huge_ number of junior ministers, and due to the Tory party's constant purges over the last decade most of them were rather new inexperienced not-super-competent MPs. "Random Tory MP has stupid idea, talks about it stupidly" is a far cry from "War on Cats seriously considered as actual government policy".

lostlogin 3y ago
> due to the Tory party's constant purges over the last decade most of them were rather new inexperienced not-super-competent MPs. "Random Tory MP has stupid idea, talks about it stupidly" I really don’t believe that the broadcasting of stupid ideas was/is due to inexperience. Some of their most ludicrous crap was from their experienced MPs.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  I think the purges also filtered out a lot of the more competent experienced MPs. Particularly in the Johnson era; quite a lot of people effectively got the boot for insufficient faith in Dear Leader.
mrguyorama 3y ago
It's also worth noting that "Government has a terrifying plan!!!!" is dumb fear mongering. You would HOPE your government has experience and practice war gaming and planning and simulating very very scary situations, because that's when you need them to work the most! That's the reason the US has war plans against "Canada" and "Britain", for training and practice and experimenting, not because we seriously think King Charles is a HOI4 player with eyes for the former colonies.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  This doesn't appear to have been the _government_ though, it was a 'minister' (and given how replete Johnson's government was with pointless junior ministers, that likely really just means a random MP). It's unlikely the actual apparatus of government was in any way involved in this; no civil servant was writing policy papers on poisoning Whiskas or anything.