Elephant alert: Power of petitioning

A good cause can often be seen to be an even better one when it attracts the support of the stars of stage and screen, especially those for whom a day not spent publicising a campaign or signing a petition is a day squandered.

But the intervention by the likes of Brigitte Bardot, Joanna Lumley, Judi Dench, Pamela Anderson, and Ricky Gervais in an international argument about the fate of baby African elephants is to be welcomed.