So cute I almost forgot about the summary executions

I have been enjoying the coverage of the recent arrival of two giant pandas at Edinburgh Zoo from China. Yang Guang (Sunshine) and Tian Tian (Sweetie) touched down on Monday after being transported by the FedEx Panda Express. The jet lagged bears, who are the first giant pandas in the UK for 17 years, were piped off the plane and taken to their new £285,000 enclosures at the capital's zoo. The pandas are on loan from the Chinese government for 10 years, at a cost of £640,000 per year. It will also cost an additional £70,000 a year to feed both pandas, with bamboo imported from an organic farm in the Netherlands. Pandas spend 14 hours a day eating and get through 18,000kg of bamboo a year. Yum. It has been observed that there are now more pandas in Scotland than there are Tory MPs.

I am no panda expert, although I do consider myself to be a grade above many people in Scotland in terms of panda familiarity, due to the fact that I have seen a panda before. San Diego Zoo, 2001: it is such a treasured memory for me. When I think about how I queued for 45 minutes to shuffle past an enclosure as I stood on my tip-toes to get the merest glimpse of a black and white thing in the distance, I just well up. And so I think I am in a position of authority when I say that Yang Guang (boy panda) does not look as I thought he would. Is it just me that thinks he looks like a person in a panda suit?

A Scottish zookeeper dressed up as a panda

The cute pictures and wide array of panda factoids distracted me long enough to briefly forget that the pandas are being exploited for commercial purposes (the PandaRama bag, the first piece of merchandise announced by Edinburgh Zoo, comes in at a cool £30) under the guise of a breeding programme. Moreover, the fact that the Scottish Government is now cosying up with its Chinese counterpart, which perpetrates some of the most horrific human rights abuses in the world. China, among other things, is the world’s leading executioner. There are currently 500,000 people in detention, without charge or trial, and millions unable to access the legal system. This is to say nothing of political persecution, female infanticide, torture, Tibet, repression of dissent, and general all-round nastiness. Take me back to the pandas!

Pandas are opposed to the death penalty

And finally, my favourite kind of panda: it has to be the red panda. Has there ever been a more adorable creature? 

Red pandas: cute as the cutest button can be