Cats are better than dogs. There’s an easy case for this: no breed of cat has ever been outlawed for killing people. But there is also a more universal reason. Dogs are slavish. You have bought the affection of a dog when you have bought a dog. That’s why they’re famously loyal: their loyalty is cheap. You know that old guy at the pub, right old brute, can’t see his kids any more – when he’s finished drinking, he goes home and kicks the dog, and the dog never leaves. Cats are proud, and their affection – their friendship – is dearly and slowly acquired (which is why it is a friendship; an instant friend is a flunkey). If you kicked a cat, they’d be straight out the catflap.
It can take years for a cat to trust you, for a cat to even enjoy spending time with you. A cat has no compulsion to stay, and therefore it is a mark of respect when they do. And if they don’t want to spend time with you, they don’t. Cats do not lie. As John Gray writes in Feline Philosophy, cats obey their nature. Dogs negate theirs. This makes cats more real to us, more conscious. “When I am playing with my cat, how do I know she is not playing with me?” asked Montaigne. This is unsettling. But at least it is mutual.
This much has been evident to sophisticated people – “cat people” – for years. We breathe a comfortable air of superiority. We did not need or request David Baddiel to make a television programme about why cats are great. But here it is nonetheless. Since he stopped chatting footy, Baddiel has flitted through pretty much every slot there is for the graduated comic: writer, children’s book “writer”, travel show presenter, playwright, polemicist and activist. With Cat Man – which amounts to Baddiel hanging out with cats and their “parents”, as the cats’ owners are ludicrously referred to – Baddiel seems to be vying for the sort of “national treasure” status that could only sustain such a crap and banal programme. A bit like “dissident”, though, or “public intellectual”, “national treasure” is a status awarded gradually and externally, not suddenly occupied.
Rather than the inarguable case for the cat above, or Gray’s rich, erudite study, Baddiel fills his and our time with more recent and obnoxious cat trends. When he is not holding and talking to various cats, Baddiel is introduced to the “catfluencers”, a ghastly species of person who make a living (“There have been some months where Louis [a cat] has been the breadwinner”) posting pictures of their cats on Instagram, filming themselves cycling their cats around London and forming brand partnerships (we’re talking Amazon, Google). These people clearly like their cats. But they’re ultimately as shallow as anyone else who turns their life into a form of commodity fetishism. “I’d only work with brands that have values that align with what I believe in,” one catfluencer nobly tells Baddiel. “What do you believe in?” he returns. “I’m not really sure.”
From the cat capitalist to another 21st-century novelty: the mouldering TV celebrity. Baddiel hangs out next with some of his showbiz pals (Gervais, Widdicombe, Wossy) to trade cat stories and cat selfies. Baddiel even goes to meet Britain’s celebrity cat: No 10’s Larry. This sequence does provide the one good observation in the entire programme – that the comedy of dogs is “slapstick” and the comedy of cats is “satirical”. But in the ultimate irony and humiliation, it comes courtesy of Frank Skinner, not Baddiel himself. And after the celebs, the RSPCA watchlist: people who walk their cats up Ben Nevis (in harnesses, like the weird cat in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging), people who take their cats paddleboarding, people who dress their cats up for Pride parades. All this froth is bizarrely undercut with a subplot about the terminal illness of Baddiel’s cat, Pip, after whose death he is filmed walking soulfully along a waterfront.
It’s dire stuff, the sort of thing you can imagine being made to screen in care homes. It only made me think of what could have been. I’m reliably informed that Gray’s Feline Philosophy sold and sells well. It is the best book written about the relationship between man and cat. He is one of our most important public intellectuals. Why was he not asked to front this? It could have been this generation’s Civilisation. Should any production studios be interested, please write in – we can provide John’s email.
[Further reading: The Night Manager series two is a soulless mistake]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 21 Jan 2026 issue of the New Statesman, Europe is back
Join the debate
Subscribe here to comment