By Mikey Smith
The Queen guitarist and animal rights campaigner gave the Prime Minister both barrels, calling him ‘the worst kind of Tory’ and saying he has no compassion for animals.
Brian May has launched a passionate attack on David Cameron, who he says has “no compassion for animals whatsoever.”
The Queen guitar legend and animal rights campaigner condemned the Prime Minister’s support for the badger cull and the legalisation of fox hunting.
Speaking exclusively to the Mirror, he said: “It looks like nothing can stand in Cameron’s way. Now he’s got a majority he can plough through with the things he was hesitating on, like fox hunting.
“I think Cameron is a special kind of Tory. The worst kind of Tory. The kind that has no compassion for animals whatsoever.”
He said: “The most appalling thing is that they fought this election on the economy, and now the first thing that comes up is fox hunting.”
Dr May has been vocal on animal rights issues since 2005.
He runs animal rights organisation Save Me, with whom he’s campaigned against blood sports and the badger cull.
He says that of the dozen or so reasons people give for why fox hunting is necessary, all but one fall down on close inspection.
“The only thing you can honestly say about fox hunting is that people enjoy it,” he said. “People have a sadistic pleasure in seeing an animal ripped apart.
“It’s sadism. To be honest, it’s psychopathic behaviour to enjoy the suffering of another creature.”
He added: “People who have no compassion for animals tend not to have compassion for humans either.”
The Mirror contacted Downing Street for a response to Dr May’s comments, but they had not responded at the time of publication.
He said the one glimmer of hope was that when the bill to repeal the Hunting Act is introduced to the Commons, it will be a free vote.
“I think all votes should be free votes,” he said. “It’s by no means certain he’ll have the full support of his party.”
He said a new petition would be set up in the coming days on the government’s website against the repeal.
Dr May was a key campaigner against the badger cull, which was piloted by former environment secretary Owen Patterson, and looks set to continue under his successor Liz Truss.
The 2013 pilot badger culls in Gloucester and Somerset were described as “ineffective” at stemming the spread of bovine TB and failed the test for humaneness, according to an independent panel of experts put together by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
And yesterday it was revealed that at a time when the government is planning £12bn in cuts to welfare, they are content to spend more than £5,000 per badger killed in the heavily criticised plan.
In February, Liz Truss told the annual conference of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) she would press on with the cull in spite of the criticism
She said: “We will not let up, whatever complaints we get from protesters groups. We are in it for the long haul and we will not walk away.”
Dr May said: “She speaks from the same hymn book as Patterson – which is the same hymn book as Cameron, who it seems has some kind of behind closed doors agreement with the NFU to continue the cull regardless of the evidence.”
NFU Director General Andy Robertson said: “The NFU has always been clear about the need for a badger cull as part of a comprehensive strategy to address the scourge of TB. However, we have not met the Prime Minister and Brian May’s claim of a behind the scenes deal therefore makes him look ridiculous.”
In the run up to the election, Dr May launched Common Decency, a project intended to encourage people to vote for people who would act with decency in the House of Commons.
He admits he’s disappointed in the outcome of the election.
He says he has no plans to abandon the project, but will be changing his methods.
“A lot of the old methods don’t work,” he said. “Even getting a vote in the House of Commons and winning that vote is no guarantee you’ll influence the government.”
But the Queen guitarist played down reports of a rift between him and Prince Charles.
In one of the Prince’s recently revealed “black spider” letters, the Prince describes the anti-badger cull lobby as “intellectually dishonest”.
But the letter was sent a decade ago, before Dr May was vocal on animal rights issues – and crucially, before the independent report declared the badger cull pilot ineffective.
Dr May said: “I imagine Prince Charles’ views could have changed.
“Somebody should ask him.
Brian May is a panelist on tonight’s Question Time tonight on BBC One at 10.45pm.
Also on the panel are Ukip leader Nigel Farage, and Jeremy Hunt, who confirmed last week that a bill to repeal the Hunting Act would be on the government’s agenda for this Parliament.
Exposing the Big Game 
Tradition this and “way of life” that… just a bunch of blood junkies.
It’s the same attitude we have here – facts be damned, proceed with the cull!
Foxes must be terribly fierce and huge in England if it takes a small army on horseback with a pack of hounds just to kill one.
However, consider Cameron’s complicity in the creation of chaos and misery in North Africa.
Apologies for the double post. Mouse click got stuck.
Agreed Camoran is a [censored]. Misread your comment.
I was saying it is easier for our society to side with human issues, rather than non-human ones.
Apologies for misreading. Also a typing error… “Cameron”.
Okay!
But also think about this: it has been noted that people who are cruel to animals may be more likely to be cruel to other people. It is a matter of categories and what gets put into them where an animal is an “other” and some humans are also deemed to be “others”.
Humans will always defend humans, acts of barbarism will always (or at least eventually) be scorned and dealt with, but when it comes to non-humans – there are whether-dos and why-fors, negotiations on how much cruelty is acceptable and of course, how much profit can be made on a given decision.
Many humans are considered non-human or sub-humans. For example, by calling them “savages”, “uncivilized”, “medieval” “relics from the Bronze Age” “communists” and so it is much easier to drop humanitarian love-bombs on them.
If barbarism (from an ancient Greek word disparaging all those outside the civilized world of the Hellenic Peninsula) is truly scorned and dealt with I do not see it except from a few who are never listened to anyway.
Foxes must be terribly fierce and huge in England if it takes a small army on horseback with a pack of hounds just to kill one.
However, consider Cameron’s complicity in the creation of chaos and misery in North Africa.
It is a disgusting” sport” that involves a group of people who get their jollies seeing dogs chase a terrified fox before they finally catch it and tear it apart. What kind of people can think that is “sporting” or “entertaining”? Also it seems that no matter how hard people fight animal abuse, they either do not win the battle or win only temporarily before the abuse comes back again. If we get laws passed, the laws are either so full of loop holes that they are useless or they are overturned. If we relent after thinking we have made progress, such as the fox hunts, the next thing we know the abuse are back again in force with backing of the powerful. Much of human nature just seems to be ugly and mean, and you don’t have to look very far to find examples.
Even Briton’s backsliding
If the UK Parliament under the direction of the oleaginous Mr. Cameron manages to legislatively roll-back the fox-hunting ban instituted over a decade ago by the Labor government, then all those formerly active hunt-saboteurs need to come back to the fray and do everything in their power, legal or illegal, to sabotage future fox hunts. It is a moral duty to BREAK unjust laws, regardless of the consequences. Cameron long-ago unmasked himself as an enemy of animals when he was exposed underhandedly trying to derail legislation outlawing circus elephants in the UK. It is indicative of the abject failure of democracy and peaceful means of protest that even at this late stage in the destruction of the natural world, in a country as advanced as England, populated and developed to the point where little wildlife even exists, that a majority of the citizenry can vote to return a man like Cameron to office.