That hardy perennial of the fourth-form debating club is back in the news: this house believes that the export of live animals for slaughter is unacceptable and cruel. Or, as a change: this house believes the meat trade is an essential and humanely run part of the British economy.
And off we go. Someone will get all tearful about moo-cows and baa-lambs. Someone else will make crass jokes about hamburgers, the entire class will then go home to eat meat for tea and watch television programmes in which rabbits or mice wear jackets and talk in squeaky voices.
As a nation, our collective psyche is in a hopeless muddle over the vexed question of animal rights. Do they, in fact, have any? And is there any point in upholding the rights of creatures you intend to murder later? Most of us, I suspect, are like Lewis Carroll's Walrus and Carpenter, who kindly invited some innocent oysters out to tea, then ate them with brown bread and vinegar. "`I weep for you,' the Walrus said,/`I deeply sympathise.'/With sobs and tears he sorted out/Those of the largest size." Though animal wrongs fill us with indignation, I do not see McDonald's or Dewhurst going out of business.
Last week animal rights campaigners from nutters in balaclavas who send letter-bombs to county types who think well-treated meat tastes better converged on the West Sussex port of Shoreham in an attempt to stop a shipment of live calves and sheep to the Continent.
In France, it appears, they do not share our qualms about cruelty. The practice of veal-crating - putting new-born calves in darkened crates to produce pale meat - was outlawed in Britain in 1990. So the lucrative business was merely transferred to France and Holland, adding seasickness to the sufferings of the poor beasts.
Some animal campaigners wept openly last Wednesday when the first convoy of 10 lorries passed the barricades on their way to Dieppe. Others hurled bottles and rocks at the police. The Battle of Shoreham has been bloody, with abuse, fights, arrests and injuries. It was also expensive, since 1,000 riot police had to be brought in, at an estimated cost of ú250,000, to guard convoys. In vain did William Waldegrave, the minister for agriculture, plead that they should be taking up the matter with Brussels instead of blockading British transporters on their lawful business.
Europe cannot see what all the fuss is about and the controversial shipment docked in Dieppe with barely a ripple of interest. A superbly rude Frenchman, appearing on the news last Thursday, suggested that it is easier for the British to be vegetarians because our food is so terrible. Sure, he implied, we care about animals on a plate with butter and garlic. What is le problÅme?
To add to the fuss, the pro-animal groups are already scrapping among themselves. Compassion In World Farming (CIWF), which had been demonstrating at Shoreham for two months, withdrew its supporters after violent clashes on Tuesday night, complaining that a peaceful protest had been hijacked by "rent-a-mob".
When amiable vegetarians take up a cause, the loonies are seldom far behind. CIWF emphatically does not support the smashing of lorries, or the planting of letter-bombs at the offices of the ferry operators. According to the police, there is a hard core of dysfunctional anarchists who basically dislike human beings. Which, of course, plays into the hands of those who argue that the whole issue of animal welfare is a sinister plot to strip us of our basic right to eat meat and wear leather. How on earth do we carve a path between the two extremes?
Inflicting needless pain on living creatures is a terrible thing. Campaigners often argue that all species are equal before heaven. And when it comes to sheep, cattle, pigs and all the other inhabitants of the plastic farmyard I owned as a child, I find it easy to sympathise. If I saw someone beating a donkey, my indignation would know no bounds.
But I would not go to the bottom of my stairs to save a rat or a cockroach. In fact, I would be the first to call Rentokil. I have not heard of council pest controllers receiving letter-bombs while ridding grateful householders of animals that are shudder-making. Does this mean some species are more equal than others? And if so, where am I supposed to draw the line?
Putting human beings first is seen by the animal lobby as the last refuge of the heartless meat-junkie. But let's rehearse those hoary old arguments again. I weigh the life of one human child against whole shiploads of beasts for slaughter, and the child wins every time.
Cheap and obvious, I grant you. But where are the campaigners who will weep openly and chuck bricks at the police for the sake of babies dying in Rwanda? Wouldn't human emotion be better spent demonstrating in front of the embassies of certain South American countries, where street urchins are routinely shot down as vermin?
Nearer home, let's have some bricks and tears for the homeless families living in unspeakable squalor in bed-and-breakfasts - forget the veal-crating, this is people-crating. If you have the time to catch a chill in Shoreham night after night, you surely also have time to kick up a fuss on behalf of the homeless.
The Good Lord created animals, and it is our responsibility to take proper care of his creation. And I can eschew battery meat with the best of them, thank you. You will not catch me with a plate full of antibiotics. If I eat something, it will have led a rich, full life and expired surrounded by its grandchildren.
But humans come first, I'm afraid. When push comes to shove, I simply prefer them. Vegetarianism is a wonderful idea, precisely because it could bring such benefits to the human race. If we all stopped raising and eating meat, cattle-flatulence would not turn the ozone layer into a piece of Nottingham lace, and we could grow more than enough to feed the millions in the Third World who are starving because the first world likes bangers with its mash.
As a nation, we are sentimental and hypocritical about the animal population. Will the protesters at Shoreham, who want the bloodthirsty Europeans to imitate our more animal-friendly British laws, also campaign for us British to adopt the more people-friendly European social laws? "I doubt it," said the Carpenter. And shed a bitter tear.
