They Would Have Had to Take Me to the Tower First
A forgotten pandemic decision that should never have been considered
Patriots — and fellow animal lovers.
This isn’t something I’ve ever seen widely discussed, but during the pandemic there was a point when, after stories began circulating about cats catching the virus, the government considered the mass culling of all 11 million cats in the UK. Pets included.
I had five cats at the time. None were outdoor cats — they had a fully enclosed, cat-proofed garden using the existing garden fence.
They’d have had to take me to the Tower of London first.
How about you?
As it turned out the cats were getting it from us, not them giving it to us.
To me, this episode perfectly captures the sheer chaos inside Whitehall at the time.
What makes it worse is this: the UK government had already taken part in pandemic preparedness planning before COVID. Not as some vague idea, but through international and cross-border exercises and meetings — mostly buried under bureaucratic language rather than headlines.
These were typically framed as:
“Health security” and “emergency preparedness”
Pandemic or influenza simulation exercises
Cross-government and cross-border outbreak planning
EU / WHO-linked health resilience meetings
Scenario planning for respiratory disease outbreaks
In other words: what to do in the event of a pandemic — even if they didn’t use that plain language publicly.
And yet, when the real thing arrived, it was as if none of it existed.
Boris Johnson was a vote-winner and personally likeable — but he caused enormous harm. The so-called “Boris wave” alone did lasting damage, and many believe it was retaliation given his lack of enthusiasm for Brexit.
Brexit itself was never completed. What we ended up with was a weak, half-finished deal. Don’t blame Brexit for the state of the country — blame the incomplete and badly negotiated version we were left with.
Would Labour have been worse? Almost certainly. But that doesn’t excuse what happened.
And the real kicker? After all that supposed preparation, they still didn’t have a clue.
The COVID inquiry so far appears to have achieved very little.
Cost to the taxpayer: £292 million.
We were governed by fear, paralysis, and institutional self-preservation — not competence.
And millions of families could have been left even more devastated and more traumatised if they had have gone ahead and ordered the destruction of millions of family pets. It would have been unforgivable and indefensible
I don’t remember that about the pandemic but possibly because I have dogs. Nevertheless I’m with you a million percent here. I love all animals and the thought of murdering them because of an illness that was created in a laboratory and then leaked to the entire world by design makes me completely enraged. No one would be taking my animals and putting them to sleep under any circumstances and I would rather die with them. Our pets are our support and our most beloved family members. This dreadful series of governments we have had ever since Blair’s new Labour came to power have done all that they can to kill the spirit of the British people and then the current encumbrance has taken it to a whole new level of authoritarianism.
Merry Christmas and Boxing Day to you are your beautiful kitties ♥️🎄🧑🏼🎄🎁🍾🥂🙏✝️
I gew up with cats so very fond of them.
The whole thing was a demonic joke. It referenced the killing of cats during the plague of 1656 which led to the plague getting worse. It was all a test of what the public would put up with and research what was really going on, which was the rebranding of the 'flu.
As to cats the wretched Tory government made microchipping cats mandatory, utterly pointless and a money making wheeze for vets.
https://baldmichael.substack.com/p/im-pussed-off-uk-government-wants?utm_source=publication-search