Judy Murray: From cruel footballer’s pet abuse to MPs’ lies, it’s double standards

I’m a big animal lover so was horrified by the film clip that went viral last week of West Ham footballer Kurt Zouma apparently kicking his pet cat.

That it happened in front of a child and was filmed by somebody, allegedly his brother, who seemingly thought it was funny enough to share on social media was appalling.

No wonder the nation – and the world for that matter – was outraged. Already tens of thousands of people have signed an international petition demanding legal action against the £29.8 million player.

What kind of role model does he think he is to the child who witnessed this and to the young fans who look up to him?

He is paid reportedly more than £100,000 a week to play for a Premier League team and this behaviour is unacceptable. If he had attacked a child or an adult in the same way, he would have been arrested. What difference does it make that the victim is feline? Cats are sentient creatures who feel pain and fear.

Zouma was reported to have said he was “deeply sorry” over the incident and insisted his cats were “loved and cherished”. Well that doesn’t wash with me. Would he have been so sorry if there hadn’t been such public anger?

Instead of taking serious action, West Ham United seemed to condone Zouma by picking him to play in the 1-0 win against Watford on Tuesday. They were definitely not reading the room on that one.

The response of the crowd reflects what everyone else was thinking and the club’s failure to take immediate action resulted in public outcry. They have now fined him £250,000 while saying they condemn his actions – too little, too late as far as I am concerned.

Already the RSPCA has taken his cats into safety and is investigating the footballer. Some major sponsors are reported to have pulled their support from the club and Zouma, and he could even be prosecuted in his native France.

I have to agree with TV presenter Chris Packham when he criticised the accountability shown by West Ham and Zouma.

It seems to me that, these days, if you are rich, famous and/or powerful, you get away with things the ordinary man or woman on the street wouldn’t; like celebs caught speeding but who don’t get banned because they can afford the expensive lawyers who help get them off the hook.

This attitude of “one rule for them and another rule for us” has been going on all through the pandemic and it bubbles over into politics. Look at the current Conservative government and all of the misdemeanours and lies that have recently been uncovered.

Irrespective of where your politics lie, all of us, surely, want strong politicians and leaders with a solid sense of probity and good values. Back in the day, we had them. But where are the likes of Neil Kinnock and Margaret Thatcher today?

I couldn’t believe what happened to Sir Keir Starmer when he had to be rescued by police as a mob chanted a lie repeated by Prime Minister Boris Johnson falsely accusing him of failing to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile.

There have been allegations this incident was stirred up in the same way as the protests linked to outgoing US President Donald Trump when rioters stormed the Capitol building last year. Was the attack on Starmer instigated to take the heat off of Boris’s lies and Partygate? You have to wonder.

Politics shouldn’t be this way. It should be a safe place for MPs and MSPs. We are still reeling from the stabbing of Conservative MP Sir David Amess in October, and we cannot forget Labour MP Jo Cox, stabbed and shot in her surgery in 2016.

We need our sportspeople, other celebrities, and politicians to be the best possible role models and to remember they are accountable no matter how much fame, money or power they have.

Violence, intimidation and lies have no place in our democratic society. We, the great British public, will not tolerate it.