Now animal activists call for ‘vegan friendly’ paint names

If it’s not Just Stop Oil eco-zealots causing havoc, it’s the animal rights activists creating a fuss. Now it transpires that Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is on the warpath – about, er, paint names. Just when you think things can’t get much weirder…

Peta – which ‘opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview’ – has hit out at the prestigious decorating firm of Farrow & Ball over the names of some of its high-end colourants. Criticising the company for the names given to certain shades – Dead Salmon and Smoked Trout being some of the most contentious pigments – Peta has demanded that the firm consider ‘updating’ the names to more ‘vegan-friendly’ options, in order to stop ‘normalising exploiting animals’. Mr S isn’t convinced that the problem lies with paint…

Employing both carrot and stick, Peta’s letter lauded the organisation’s paints for being ‘cruelty-free’, adding that ‘most are vegan’. The animal lovers even suggested that renaming controversial colours could be a ‘fun’ way to appeal to ‘more conscious consumers’. Vice-president of corporate projects at Peta, Yvonne Taylor, wrote to Farrow & Ball’s colour curator, gushing that: ‘Dead Salmon could become Magic Mushroom, Au Lait could become Lait de Coco and Potted Shrimp – well, you’re the expert, but you get the idea!’

Writing that dairy cows ‘may spend their entire lives standing on concrete floor…before they’re slaughtered at just five years old’, Taylor has even suggested that milk-related paint shades be banned too. This is, of course, the same organisation that hit out at Royal Mail over a pug stamp, claiming it ‘glamourises ailing animals’. Talk about barking mad…