Football requires a brain too. I may have a PhD blah blah but to see Beckham swerve the ball over 30 yards into space for a player to run into, where I never noticed an opening... that too is a skill. I was fit enough to be a footballer, and as I kick with my left foot, I managed to reach the school team, but I was not clever enough in the areas where it counts to be one, so after a spell down the pit and then as a rep, I got into further education, ran my own businesses and ended up being of the sort that is envied rather than doing the envying. Yep, a fat cat who then got paid even more to advise a government department. But you know what? I wish I was clever enough to have been a footballer.

Bob Marshall Andrews can talk, never said he couldn't, but to be an orator, it helps to have a stance, and I used to wonder how he ever in all seriousness could take the party whip.   

Richard Bridge just said that there is a difference between oratory and football. With regard to Bob Marshall Andrews, I would say there is a difference between oratory and being a loose cannon. Mind you, he liked to appear his own man, sitting next to Ian Hislop biting the party hand that feeds him. But later that night, in the division lobby, he asked the whips which queue to get into, like a good boy...

And to return to the dogs bit... It will a loose cannon, a back bencher who is easily disowned, who will be asked to form a private members bill with little chance of success.

I don't have a view either way. I am with Oscar Wild and have an issue with killing for pleasure. It is about time Darwin eradicated that primeval gene. But on the other hand, the bill was less to do with saving vermin and more to do with class war. I have better things to worry about myself... I suspect many others do too. My days of shouting "eat the rich" ended when I found out being rich was a much better proposition. Pompous? No worse than some of the diatribe being spouted on this subject from those who try to make envy a noble cause...