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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Debating Animals

Factual: Pets & Animals

Factual: Science & Nature

Rod Liddle examines our differing responses to related animal species

Rod Liddle examines our differing responses to certain animals and tries to establish what those responses tell us not merely about the animals but about ourselves

Debating Animals: Series 2

Debating Animals: Series 2: Episode 1: The Fox and the Rat

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Factual

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

The Fox and the Rat

Episode 1

Episode 1: The Fox and the Rat

Series 2

BBC Radio 4 - Debating Animals, Series 2, The Fox and the Rat

Rod Liddle debates our responses to two vilified animals, the fox and the rat.

Rod Liddle, columnist, editor and enthusiastic naturalist, tries to unpick the truths behind our reactions to two flag-carrying members of British vermin, the fox and the rat.

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.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Rod Liddle examines our differing responses to related animal species and tries to establish what those responses tell us not merely about the animals but about ourselves

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Debating Animals

Series 2

Episode 1: The Fox and the Rat

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