Well it’s obvious what the big question was for us all this week: should Marcus, the primary school lamb, have been given the chop? (Yes it is compulsory for all journalists reporting on dead sheep stories to use that pun. Pretty clever, huh?) You know the story. Marcus had been lovingly bottle-fed for months by under-tens for a school project in Kent. But then it was decided that the moment had come for him to be taken to a slaughterhouse and in time-honoured fashion, hung upside down by his ankles and his throat slit open with a knife. His meat has been put in the school raffle.

Online campaigners who fought to save him plus a number of traumatised children and parents are outraged. One protester called the head teacher a murderer and another is considering suing the education authority for child distress. This was a cherished pet and should have been treated as such, they say.

So, what do we reckon? Should Marcus — a very photogenic young ram as it happens, though not so pretty now — have been allowed to see out his days in Lydd Primary being dressed in Easter bonnets and learning the words to All Things Bright and Beautiful? Or should he have been dispatched to the abattoir and turned into cutlets?

Well, as someone who has been vegetarian for the past 26 years and who gets teary watching Big Barn Farm, I say it was right to give him the chop.

Before I’m blacklisted by the Vegetarian Society, let me explain. In my perfect world no animals would ever be bred and slaughtered for meat but instead would lie around in five-star fields listening to their iPods, making sweet love and passing round a spliff. This would be by way of an apology for the atrocious way that humans have used and abused them for centuries.

However, I’ve spent much time in my life trying to convince people of the rightness of the non-meat existence and do you know how many times I have succeeded? None.

But Marcus on the other hand — Marcus is The Man. In one day he has done more to advance the cause of vegetarianism than I or any other sulky-faced student ever did handing out leaflets in smelly jeans.

Already some kids are saying they’ll never eat meat again thanks to the martyr of Romney Marsh. I’ve heard tales of horrified children looking up slaughterhouse footage on Google to discover how Marcus met his maker (put it this way, kids, it was no Disney ending). If this effect ripples countrywide then one animal’s death could mean the saving of thousands more. I’m beginning to wonder whether Andrea Charman, the headmistress, who looks like a woman you wouldn’t pick a fight with, is really a secret agent for Peta and waging counter-intuitive warfare against the farming industry. It’s certainly a tactic they should explore.

Because Ms Charman would have done no favours to Britain's millions of farm animals if she had relented and let Marcus live. That, you see, would have allowed everyone to feel all was right with the world, then go back to buying their Tesco Value mince. I’m glad there was a campaign to save him — but I bet many of those weeping for this sheep across the country are carnivores who seldom give serious thought to animal welfare standards as they throw another bacon vacuum pack in the trolley.

But what a masterclass in realism that teacher has given those children and their parents! What a valuable dose of truth. We can hardly claim it wasn’t needed. Children are becoming so remote from the food production process that a recent survey showed many think that cows lay eggs and bacon comes from sheep. One in ten eight-year-olds has no idea that pork chops come from pigs.

Before we titter at that we should remember that it’s hardly surprising given the way food is deliberately disguised and euphemised. Consider the rather confused message in Billy Bear sliced sausage — two-tone re-formed turkey and pork that has been flattened into the shape of a teddy bear’s face. Not, note, a pig or a turkey’s face. And what the hell is going on with those butcher's shops that have a board outside featuring a happy pig wearing a striped apron and brandishing a tray full of choice cuts — thus effectively serving up himself? That’s not just hubristic, it’s perverted.

I know when vegetarians come over all preachy, people just yawn and turn the page. But you don’t have to be a lentil-muncher to get angry with people who reserve the right to eat animals but when asked to consider for a moment how those creatures lived and died cover their ears and shriek: “Ugh, — I don’t want to know. It makes me feel sick.” The same people who cry “disgusting!” when Jamie Oliver kills a lamb on television. Why? Because you don’t want to be inconvenienced with the actualité?

I know by writing this that I’m opening what The Thick of It describes as The S**t Room. Some people have only one response to this topic — abuse — and I’m sure the postbag brimming with hilarious mint sauce gags will follow. “How can you care about animals when people are dying in the world?”, some will inevitably say, as if the two concerns were mutually exclusive. Yes — let’s do nothing about X because Y exists.

A great many people expect pleasure without responsibility, which is why if I was prime minister I’d make it mandatory for every carnivore to visit an intensive farm and slaughterhouse. I’m serious. Witness, and then if you still make the same choices — well at least they’re informed ones. I long ago accepted that humans will never stop eating meat so the best hope — the only hope — that farm animals have for better treatment is if people aren’t cosily protected from the grim detail.

Some say these pupils were too young to be exposed to such brutal truths: let them live in blissful innocence a while longer. It does seem a tad harsh to encourage seven-year-olds to name a lamb and then drag it off to the killing room. But let’s not forget that some of those who voted for Marcus’s execution were on the school council and were pupils themselves (I do hope they’re never on my jury) and that he had an infinitely nicer life than the majority of farm livestock. This is the silver lining which they should take away.

One of the parents at Lydd Primary confirms that her daughter Liberty, 10, has now turned vegetarian. Take a bow, headmistress. As for Marcus — rest in peace, old son. Your work here is done.