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For Pratfalls political fans – or the Scottish policy should be, the Scottish policy was the joy of this week. John Sweeney, the Scottish National National Minister, was attracted to a comic attempt to kill a news story that is likely to alienate a huge percentage of voters in a state obsessed with pets: that it is about to declare war on the ownership of the cat.

Moggie Ban Springs scares from one of the proposals in a report to the Scottish government by the independent Animal care Advisors. The authors of the report are anxious about the number of other creatures in the hand, or a claw, from the local two syllables – especially the birds. But with the start of the story, recommendations to consider “contain” cats in some rural areas – perhaps at home, and perhaps on the wheel – have become a conspiracy for the government to confront cat lovers such as Kidonian and their pets collectively.

Sweeney is increasingly asked, wherever he went and any realistic policy there was to promote: Will Tiddles take away?

It is a strange solution for the SNP leader to find himself in it. Every time he tries to kill the cat’s question, the most interesting cat fans attract: Is there, despite his words, danger to their beloved pets? Sometimes, its form of words- “no intention to restrict cats’ ownership”- seem to be a satirical ear like what is known in policy Trade as “denial of denial.” Everyone now knows that “there are no plans” is a symbol of “we have not created and benefited it yet.”

To the barricades! Cat food stock and cats trap! And I must announce an interest here as a lifelong cat lover-along with 4 million others, as a follower for the calculation of “Why you have to have a cat” (X (it will be not fair to point out that Swinney has much less followers, so I will pull my practices).

But I find that this story is convincing as a vocal example of one of the most powerful disasters that can afflict a politician – stumbles in the perishing cycle of unconvincing dust on the topics that harm you.

The top of the echo returned to the Lindon Johnson machines and the way a competitor in the 1948 Senate race – the best narration by Hunter Thompson writing dirty trick campaigns. Apocryphal or not, the story says that LBJ insisted on his aides should publish rumors that this man, a pig farmer, had “routine physical knowledge of his cultivation”. They objected to the fact that it is not correct, only to produce their boss in response to the activists: “Let’s make the bastard deny it.”

This was Trump Before the message Think about “they eat dogs. They eat cats” in the discussion in the 2024 presidential elections with Kamala Harris, where they smoke migrants in Springfield in Ohio.

Of course, concerns will not disappear about the slaughter of wildlife raised by the Sweeini Consulting Committee. Home cats are effective predators-my smelter is accustomed to having a bowl known as the “dead bird bag”. We have adopted two Moggies to keep a group of deadly mice. Humphrey, a government cat based in the Cabinet Office since 1989, has been accused of “killing” some children Robbins – but his honor defended civil service employees strongly.

This “scandal” writing is the hat that surrounds Bandom that surrounds Larry, the current cats on the street. It may be enough to turn you against cat fans, if not the animals themselves. Then again, Larry’s photos are a health export industry for the United Kingdom. Sweeini may have identical paths at his official residence in Bott House, not least to calm the doubts that have been raised in the past few days. Moreover, it will be safe from Trump 2.0 – you cannot slap a tariff on TWEE.

miranda.green@ft.com