Not that long ago, our favourite comedian, Ricky Gervais, wrote to Gordon Brown about the MoD’s continued use of bearskins for the Queen’s Guards’ caps. When The Office legend, and now Hollywood star, learned that it takes the entire hide of one Canadian bear for each cap, he was so shocked he immediately put pen to paper and demanded answers.

Well, Mr Brown responded to Ricky’s letter and frankly, it’s pretty depressing reading. While he supposedly “completely understand[s]” Ricky’s feelings on the matter and agrees “that this practise should be ended as soon as possible”, he joins the MoD in their frankly-getting-quite-boring-now spiel about not finding a “suitable” alternative because of the “complex characteristics” of black bear fur. WTF? I’m not hearing much understanding there. And neither is Ricky.

So he popped another letter in the post to our dearest PM and you can read it in full here. In it, he explains, “Please know that the MoD have sung this song for years, leaving PETA with the job of finding a material that essentially must be bearskin in all respects (e.g., it must shine like bearskin, not shine more than bearskin, stand up like bearskin, be able to be brushed in the same way as bearskin and be impervious to this, that and the other).

“As long as bears are shot for the caps, the MoD must surely be compelled to establish a timeline of some urgency within which they will phase out the fur caps. Would your office be so good as to prod them with a stick?”

And they really do need a good prodding. Check out this scandalous undercover footage of racist hunters that the MoD could be supporting when buying the bearskins. Does Gordon Brown really want to get mixed up in that?

Image: Capptions / CC

You may be surprised to know that the news that former shadow home secretary, David Davis, resigned over the extension of detaining terror suspects without charge to 42 days interests us here at PETA. Why? While the decision by Gordon Brown has been described by MPs as an ‘infringement on civil liberties’, what struck us as most interesting is the comparison we couldn’t help but make between these detainees and chickens. Yep, chickens.

Broiler chickens to be exact. These chickens that are raised for food, either in dingy, smelly and cramped factory farms, or ‘free range’, are generally slaughtered after just 42 days of life. Sure it must be horrible to be locked up in a cell for 42 days, but think about our billions of feathered friends who are bred to die after just, yep you got it, 42 days. Their life sucks from day one and there’s no fair trial at the end of the line for them. Just a death sentence. Now THAT sucks.

Yesterday, as G8 members reached across the table to grab a helping of kelp-flavoured cold Kyoto beef shabu-shabu, an African child scraped around in the dirt for anything he could come across. As Gordon Brown tucked into an 18 dish meal (over eight courses, not including a five-course working lunch), the people of Britain baulked at the headlines that called for us to stop wasting food to avert a global food crisis. Forgive me if I sound blunt, but what a load of hypocrisy.

The world’s G8 leaders met in sunny Hokkaido, Japan, for a £285 million summit to discuss the global poverty problem. They dined on just about every animal under the sun, including kegani crab, smoked salmon and sea urchin pain-surprise-style, Kyoto beef and ‘milk-fed lamb’ (full menu at Times Online, it’s a real treat). Our letter to Brown not that long ago calling for him to adopt a vegetarian diet if he really cares about the food crisis had obviously slipped his mind.

A leaked World Bank report has concluded that biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75 percent, which in turn has pushed 100 million people across the world below the poverty line. So let me just remind you of a rather startling figure we gave our dear Prime Minister in April:

100 million tonnes of grain will be used to produce biofuel worldwide this year, 760 million tonnes will be used to feed chickens, pigs and other farmed animals.

Yet just a few hours before sinking his teeth (and the other G8 leaders’ of course, let’s not forget them) into dish after dish of extravagant – and most definitely not vegetarian – fayre, the government released this little gem:

“The rise of popular interest in food policy issues, and growing public awareness of the impact of what we choose to eat on everything from animal welfare, to our health and the protection of the environment has seen a massive transformation in Britain’s food culture over the past ten years.”

Elsewhere he also said:

“We need a global plan to deal with rising food prices that are affecting millions of families in Britain. That’s why I am proposing that we take action to both increase the global supply of food and reduce unnecessary demand.”

So, an 18 dish dinner is necessary, hmm?

Following the stranding of more than 70 dolphins off the Cornish coast last week - 26 of whom have died, I might add - we think it’s time Gordon Brown and the MoD got an ear-bashing for the part they had to play in the tragedy. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise that the testing of military sonar will have an effect on dolphins (and whales), causing them to become confused, lost and ultimately beached up on a shore, like these guys did. Ingrid didn’t hesitate in faxing over a letter to the big PM, and here’s what she had to say:

Gordon Brown has been talking about re-evaluating EU biofuel plans and devoting more money to food aid, which is great news. What he’s not talking about, however, is the fact that over seven times more grain is used to feed chickens, pigs and other farmed animals than what’s used for biofuel. That’s the kind of figure you can’t be ignoring, and thankfully some of the media are starting to pick up on it.

So we sent the Prime Minister a pleasant letter asking him to give vegetarianism a whirl, and a hamper of delicious vegan food from Whole Food Market that he can sample.