Woke animal rights campaigners have claimed British fairgrounds should stop featuring horses and other animals on carousels as it encourages exploitation.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) suggested replacing horses with objects which celebrate human achievement.
Peta's Elisa Allen said: "It would be wonderful to see UK fairgrounds replace animal-shaped carousel figures with vehicles such as cars, unicycles, tractors, aeroplanes, rockets, and bulldozers – or more whimsical designs like shooting stars, rainbows, or brooms."
The charity made the same request in the US and the Netherlands.
Animal rights campaigners are arguing for horses to be removed from carousels
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Peta told US firm Chances Rides that using animal designs on merry-go-rounds “unintentionally celebrates the exploitation” of “thinking, feeling, affectionate, playful, and social beings”.
But British politicians were left outraged by the suggestion.
Alicia Kearns, the Conservative MP for Rutland and Melton, told The Telegraph: “Peta seem to be on a doom carousel, spiralling in their own echo-chamber, they should get off at the next stop, and recognise there’s such a thing as an imagination. Let children enjoy theirs and their innocence.”
Former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage added: “Peta are fanatical lunatics. They put animals above people in their joyless world.”
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Nigel Farage was among the politicians left fuming with the situation
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Farage also suggested switching horses for aeroplanes will lead to a backlash from the climate change lobby.
Ingrid Newkirk, the British-American president and founder of Peta, wrote in a letter: “Animal-themed carousel sets reinforce the notion that these sentient beings are simply here for our entertainment, rather than individuals with the same capacity to experience fear, pain, joy, and love as any of us.”
She added: “Children learn through play, and teaching them to have respect and compassion for all living, feeling beings can help create a more just and merciful world.
“Peta urges Chance Rides and all other carousel manufacturers to hit the brakes on old-fashioned animal-themed rides and embrace designs that engage children’s imagination and showcase human talent.”
A retro merry-go-around from the New Jersey State Fair
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Carousels were initially inspired by cavalry games and jousting from 12th-century Europe and Asia.
Horses were a central theme of early carousel rides.
The earliest known carousel that worked in America was in Salem, Massachusetts, and was known as the “wooden horse circus ride”.
The oldest operating platform carousel in the US was the Flying Horses Carousel in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts.