Badgering...

There's little that does so much to raise the emotional temperature than the suggestion that slaughtering badgers is a 'good idea'.   Badgers, after all, are emotionally embedded in our national psyche, not least because of their portrayal in Wind in the Willows and various Disney animations, and those opposed to the proposed cull clearly feel incredibly strongly about the rightness of their cause.

It's a thorny issue, however, and one which the embattled cattle industry sees as decimating their herds if nothing is done. But is culling the right way forward?

The reality is that they chose a cull because badgers are easily captured and killed. Had the threat emanated from a parasitic or insect-borne contagion, then culling would have been impractical, so other avenues would have been explored, if for no other reason than culling flies is at best an awkward proposition.

This ruling does, however, focus the  minds of the WAG on the alternatives, such as vaccination. And perhaps that isn't such a bad thing.