They're both on the wanted list, dead rather than alive, and they're both classed as vermin, but there's a world of difference between our national attitudes to the Fox and the Rat.

Once again Rod Liddle sets out to find out why we think and react as we do to these creatures. What are we to make of the statistics that periodically terrify newspaper readers as rats threaten to over-run our cities? But this debate is moving all the time. Twenty years ago the Fox was the emblem of the put-upon. The hounded beauty standing between the Toff and his stirrup cup it was always hard work for the hunting fraternity to persuade us of their menace. But with urban attacks and foxes scavenging on every street corner the tide is turning against 'the foxy whiskered gentleman'.

Rod takes to the field and lane with experts involved with both animals and he seeks guidance from literature and history as he debates our reaction to The Rat and The Fox. Show less