Badgering the Badgers

Early rain meant that there was no point in going down to the allotment until lunchtime, because the ground would be too soft to walk on.
So instead of having put the world to rights over lunch, we laboured all afternoon and then decided to return after supper to watch the badgers.
It was around ten when the first of them appeared.
We put out little trails of peanuts (animal feed quality) around the perimeter of our allotment, and the badgers quite happily feed on those rather than dig up our vegetables.
And so we sat for an hour or more as the night deepened, quietly chatting and first watching, then listening, to the badgers work their way around the edge of the allotment, gobbling up the peanuts.
'I'm pleased that the Government has decided not to go ahead with the national badger cull' Nosher whispered 'the solution to bovine TB lies in the development of an effective vaccine, rather than wiping out one of our most beautiful wild animals.'
'I suppose we must be grateful that one of Gordon the Moron's more able Assistant Fools, Hilary Benn, is responsible for these matters' I whispered in reply 'I can imagine the more spineless ministers would have simply given in to the farming lobby.'
'Well, since there's no scientific evidence that the bovine TB problem actually originated with badgers - rather than with over-bred cows with weakened immune systems passing it on to badgers' Nosher muttered 'I'm glad that the responsibility for solving the problem has been laid firmly at the door of the livestock industry and veterinary science.'
It was now so dark I could no longer see Nosher, although he was sitting only a few feet away.
'I guess we'll be safe from abuse and reprisals so long as we don't express these opinions too openly within earshot of livestock farmers' I muttered.
'Yeah' came the reply 'let's keep our opinions to ourselves.'
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