Here's my new column. I suggest a controversial idea, then you lot argue about it whilst I'm in the canteen. When I come back I read the replies. Ace.

#1 - Animal Rights.

Here is a theory what I have just thought of (I am deciding whether I agree with it or not). It goes like this:

- Animals do not (in an absolute 'sent from above' sense)have 'rights', because rights are a human concept.

- If an animal were to acquire rights it would be because humans chose to give them.

- Such rights would (for argument's sake) boil down to freedom from suffering and a right to life.

- If we were to give rights to all animals then we should pro-actively enforce those rights with laws. These laws would apply to all animals.

- Therefore we should actively protect animals from other animals, as we do with humans.

- We should, for example, intervene to prevent a lion from killing and eating a wilderbeast, or should imprison a leopard seal to prevent it from killing penguins.

- This is because such attacks would impinge on the 'rights' of the preyed-on animals.

- The lions and seals should also be made to eat vegetables.

DiScuss.