"Kept in the dark, abused and unable to move. And that's just our agriculture minister."
The RSPCA's full page newspaper ad captures well how the campaign against veal shipping is developing into something broader.
Headlines
What started as a marginalssue has grabbed national headlines and now looks like affecting European agriculture policy. It is mobilising a constituency that rarely takes part in political activity.
Cruelty toward cuddly animals with large dark eyes has always animated a disproporTRADE UNION NEWS tionately large number of people on this island. But the depth of feeling this time around seems to indicate something more.
Jonathon Porritt was taken aback at the radicalism of the movement which shows "principled positions defended beyond compromise and sometimes beyond reason; an aptitude for the tactics of attrition that would have done credit to the Vietcong".
But really the issue is immaterial. This movement indicates how a whole social layer is becoming disenchanted with government and the established procedures of social order.
Margot Norman of the Times gave an insider's view: they are people "who already feel so powerless and disillusioned with the processes by which their lives are governed, that the sight of the crated calf gives them a sudden jolt of identity.
Lashing out
That's how they feel themselves. They are merely lashing out as an expression of their own cratedness".
Exaggeration? Well not really. Is not "cratedness" an apt description of the feelings of powerlessness Tory Britain enYork Hall, Old Ford Road, London, E2 Berr-a Gree tube! genders in its inhabitants? Tory promises to defend railways are hollow: Labour must renationalise the whole of British Rail