1. It is a victory for animal rights activists over the means of production in a sensitive consumer market. The English have a reputation of wishing to appear more considerate to animals than to children, but this is more than legislation against the beating of pit ponies. It grows out of mass consumer markets, where the taint of something that is ecologically unpleasant can put considerable pressure on companies.
2. How the government did it. There was no centralised state imposition of a diktat. Last year they succeeded in organising a series of meetings of the British cosmetic industry and getting "voluntary" agreement to end testing of finished cosmetic products, eg lipstick. Now the "voluntary" agreement this year extends the decision to cosmetic ingredients. The manufacturers have "voluntarily" all surrendered their licenses for such testing. And the Home Office has announced it will not be issuing any more.
Thus no implications of a powerful socialist state crushing individual intitiative. No wrangling in long parliamentary debates championing the cause of individual liberty and bourgeois right by pointing out the illogicality and the difficulty of distinguishing a raw material used for the cosmetic industry and the same raw material used for another purpose, etc etc.
Yes a nanny state, but more a state run by social workers and conflict management experts and agreement brokers, which use social values to shape the market without destroying the market.
These methods could increasingly be used in other situations.
Chris Burford
London.