Twitter reduces democratic debate to a polemic
A A Gill's slaughter at the hands of the twitterati sets an interesting precedent, suggests Dougal Paver.
Gill, like Clarkson, makes a living from tilting against public opinion. He loves nothing more than watching us choke on our outrage, considering it job done.
Top of his weekly to do list, one imagines, is the question "now who can I irritate this week?"
Well, he really did it last week when he admitted to shooting and killing a baboon in Tanzania to see what it would feel like.
Cue public outrage, much of it dark and threatening. The Animal Liberation Front even declared him a 'legitimate target', which sounds like it should prompt a visit from Special Branch.
Would I shoot a baboon? Nope. I've shot plenty of other things, but only ever for the purpose of feeding my family. Rabbit, pheasant, wood pigeon, grouse, woodcock, partridge and more, all celebrated via delicious recipes that brought out the special flavour that comes from a free-range life. If I wasn't prepared to eat it, I wouldn't shoot it.
Amidst the approbrium heaped upon Gill there seems to be little understanding of the reality of animal control: why it's necessary; how to do it; and the consequences of failing to ensure an appropriate balance between competing interests.
One man's cuddly bunnykins is another's income-threatening pest - and another's delicious meal. Rabbits are classed as vermin in the UK, as are grey squirrels - that's the same status as a rat. I bet you most people don't know that.
Love songbirds? Thrushes, robins, blackbirds? Wonder why they're in almost terminal decline? That'll be those lovely grey squirrels, aided and abetted by those striking magpies that are now everywhere. Oh, and their cousins, the jay, and those cuddly cats that half the population have curled up on their sofas.
The point is that everything is both predator and prey on this planet and if any of it gets out of kilter the results - economic, ecological and, sometimes, political - can be significant.
It's why we cull deer in this country and why Charlie Fox is also classed as vermin by the government.
Over in Africa many countries cull baboons because of their destructive impact on farming (that's people's livelihoods to you and me, and a country's ability to feed itself).
They're also shot - like deer in the UK - because their behaviour can be highly destructive within their own social group. Gill committed no crime in Tanzania doing what he did - he just didn't help himself with his highly questionable motives nor his desire to rub the public's nose in it.
What's lost amidst the clamour is any appreciation of the necessity for animal control. Never let the facts get in the way of the baying twitterati, after all.
And it's that baying mob that should worry us. Is this how democracy and public discourse are now to conduct themselves - at the receiving end of just 140 characters? Not much room for reasoned and courteous debate in that, is there?
Welcome to the age of the pithy polemic.
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