Politicians forget voters’ love for animals at their peril

Row over ex-marine’s dog shelter may come back to bite ministers, writes Andrew Woodcock

The row over Paul Farthing’s dog shelter may erupt in the government’s face (PA)

The summer of 2021 has been one of those times when politicians come to rue the remarkable love the British public feels towards animals.

First there was the saga of Geronimo the alpaca, placed under a death sentence – still not carried out – as part of official efforts to wipe out bovine tuberculosis.

Dismissed by some as a typical “silly season” story occupying the newspaper front pages while the political world was quiet, the fate of Geronimo has nonetheless gripped millions and forced ministers into awkward contortions as they tried to hold the line that there were no exceptions to their destruction policy.

And when the silly season came to an abrupt end with the fall of Kabul to the Taliban and the news got deadly serious, there was no respite for the government from the concerns of animal-lovers.

Ex-Marine Paul “Pen” Farthing has been at the centre of a story which has driven ministers to distraction and triggered a tidal wave of letters and emails to MPs.

During a deployment to Afghanistan with 42 Commando in 2006, Farthing adopted a stray dog, which he named Nowzad after the town where he first encountered it as he broke up an organised dog fight, bringing it back to the UK at the end of his tour of duty.

This inspired the creation of the Nowzad Dogs charity, which has since reunited more than 1,600 service personnel with dogs and cats who befriended them during missions, and has established the first animal rescue centre in Afghanistan.

Now a best-selling author, Farthing responded to the encroaching threat of a Taliban takeover by launching a “rescue the animal rescuers” campaign to ensure that the 71-strong Nowzad team were included in the evacuation of people with links to the UK who may face reprisals from the fundamentalist Islamist group.

A £200,000 crowdfunding campaign under the banner Operation Ark quickly raised the money for a privately-chartered Airbus A330 cargo plane to fly Nowzad’s human workers and the 140 dogs and 40 cats under their care to the UK.

But the enthusiastic response from the British public did not reckon with the chaotic circumstances around Kabul airport, or with defence secretary Ben Wallace’s insistence that he would not prioritise pets over people as he oversaw the evacuation of around 15,000 UK nationals and Afghan staff.

With Farthing making increasingly desperate appeals for help on TV – and winning high-profile support from the likes of comedian Ricky Gervais – the situation broke down into a bizarre war of words conducted between him and Wallace, which saw the minister tell a radio audience that claims the ex-commando had been abandoned were “bollocks”.

Mr Wallace said that Sgt Farthing was offered a place on a flight home as early as 20 August, and warned that a private aircraft arriving at Kabul was likely to be left standing empty on the tarmac to prevent it getting in the way of military planes ferrying evacuees to safety. Simply getting a plane to the airport did not overcome the larger logistical difficulties of getting Farthing and his animals through Taliban checkpoints and surging crowds and through the gates, he explained.

As the Operation Ark plane finally set off for Kabul on Thursday, with Farthing trying to persuade the Taliban, via Twitter, to let him and his team into the airport, Wallace issued a string of tweets in which he barely sought to conceal his frustration at the row.

Dismissing as a “myth” claims that Farthing’s flight had been blocked, the defence secretary blasted what he said had been “bullying, falsehoods and threatening behaviour” directed at MoD personnel by supporters of the animal rescuers, and appealed for them to be allowed to get on with their work without distraction.

To many, the spectacle of the political leader of the UK armed forces being reduced to getting embroiled in a row about cats and dogs – on a day when the military completed its task of rescuing thousands from the Taliban and Islamist suicide bombers delivered a deadly terror attack on the airport – will seem like a ludicrous misallocation of time and effort.

But the fact that Mr Wallace felt the need to go public with his exasperation is an indication of the degree of political pressure which campaigners have succeeded in bringing to bear on the government.

Many Tory MPs report they have received more letters and emails demanding help for Sgt Farthing than about any other aspect of the Afghan debacle. And if Farthing’s bid to get home does not reach a satisfactory conclusion, Boris Johnson and his government may rest assured that the ranks of animal-lovers among Britain’s voters will not be quick to forget.