Queen Camilla giving up real fur? This is what leadership is all about

The Queen is using her privilege to set a moral example, writes Chas Newkey-Burden – if only the government would follow suit

Queen Camilla has promised that she will buy no new fur products (PA)

When I started campaigning for animal rights as a teenager in the 1980s, I was really inspired by an iconic poster created by anti-fur campaigners. Alongside an image of a smartly dressed woman holding a bloody fur coat was a corker of a slogan: “It takes up to 40 dumb animals to make a fur coat. But only one to wear it.”

Of all the animal rights issues I campaigned on, fur seemed the most straightforward. Why should animals be caged and killed, just to produce a weird coat? If you’d told me back then that we’d still be discussing the issue four decades on, I wouldn’t have believed you. Surely this vain cruelty would have been eradicated long before 2024?

But although fur farms were banned in the UK in 2000, imported fur from various species, including fox, rabbit, mink, coyote, raccoon dog and chinchilla, is still allowed.