The Green Party now wants to restrict my freedom of choice and stop me eating meat

By Jonathan Isaby

There's a story I missed a few days ago which is worth highlighting in my continuing efforts to expose the Green Party variously as an uncuddly, far-left, statist, authoritarian party.

Quite simply, the party's leader and sole MP, Caroline Lucas, wants to ban me and everyone else working on the parliamentary estate from being able to eat meat  on Mondays. She has written to the parliamentary catering authorities asking them to provide, on one day a week, "a totally animal-free menu in order to help tackle the world's environmental and other problems".

Backing the so-called "Meat Free Monday" campaign, she says:

"Farming and slaughtering animals is now recognised as a significant contributor to today's greatest environmental problems. According to the United Nations, livestock farming could be responsible for up to 18 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire transport sector combined. As well as saving carbon, reducing the amount of meat in our diets will also help improve health."

Last time I checked, protein from meat and fish was an essential part of a balanced diet. But that aside, it angers me that this party, which claims to believe in civil liberties, is trying to dictate what the rest of us can eat.

Yet a party spokesman claims:

"This is not... to restrict people's choices, but to spread awareness of the impacts that people's individual and collective choices can make."

I, meanwhile, am delighted to spread awareness of the potential impact of Green Party policies...