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For fans of political pratfalls — or should that be catfalls — Scottish politics has been a delight this week. John Swinney, the sobersided Scottish National party first minister, was drawn into a farcical attempt to kill off a news story likely to alienate a hefty proportion of voters in a pet-obsessed nation: that he is about to declare war on cat ownership.
The moggie ban scare springs from one of the proposals in a report to the Scottish government by its independent animal welfare advisers. The report’s authors are concerned at the death toll of other creatures at the hand, or paw, of domestic felines — particularly birds. But as the story took off, recommendations to consider “containment” of cats in some rural areas — maybe inside, maybe on a leash — had become a plot for the government to take on Caledonian cat lovers and their pets en masse.
An increasingly exasperated Swinney was asked, wherever he went and whatever real-life policy he was there to promote: are you going to take Tiddles away?
It’s a bizarre fix for the SNP leader to find himself in. Each time he tries to kill off the cat question, it attracts the attention of more concerned feline fans: is there, despite his words, a danger to their beloved pets? Occasionally his form of words — “no intention of restricting the ownership of cats”- sound to the cynical ear like what’s known in the politics trade as a “non-denial denial”. By now everyone knows that “no plans to” is code for “we just haven’t written it down and actioned it yet”.
To the barricades! Stockpile the cat food and booby trap the cat flap! And I should declare an interest here as a life-long cat lover — and, along with 4mn others, as a follower of the “Why you should have a cat” X account (it would be unfair to point out that Swinney has far fewer followers, so I will pull in my claws).
But I find this story compelling as a comic example of one of the most powerful disasters that can befall a politician — getting stuck in a doom loop of unconvincing rebuttals on topics that hurt you.
The loudest echo is back to the machinations of Lyndon Johnson and his method of seeing off a rival in the 1948 race for the Senate — best retold by Hunter S Thompson writing about dirty tricks campaigns. Apocryphal or not, the story goes that LBJ insisted his aides should spread the rumour that this man, a pig farmer, had “routine carnal knowledge of his sows”. They objected that it was untrue, only for their boss to produce a response that became axiomatic for campaigners: “Let’s make the bastard deny it.”
This was Trumpian avant la lettre — think of “They’re eating the dogs . . . they’re eating the cats” in the 2024 presidential election debate with Kamala Harris, smearing immigrants in the Ohio town of Springfield.
Of course, concerns about wildlife slaughter raised by Swinney’s advisory panel won’t go away. Domestic cats are efficient predators — my in-laws used to have a receptacle known as “the dead bird bag”. We adopted our own two moggies to keep down a bunch of rampant mice. Humphrey, a government cat based at the cabinet office from 1989, was accused of the “murder” of some baby robins — but his honour was hotly defended by civil servants.
The write-ups of that “scandal” are as cutesy and fey as the fandom that surrounds Larry, the current Downing Street feline. It might be enough to turn you against cat fans, if not the animals themselves. Then again, Larry’s photo shoots are a healthy export industry for the UK. Maybe Swinney should have a matching mouser at his Bute House official residence, not least to allay suspicions raised in the last few days. And what’s more, it would be safe from Trump 2.0 — you can’t slap a tariff on twee.
miranda.green@ft.com