F&D - UPDATE 17

Dr. Richard North PhD. [UKIP]
Research Director EDD [European Parliament]
22nd. June 2001
What Price an Inquiry? 

What price an inquiry?

It is a measure of the profound anger felt by rural communities over the government's handling of the foot and mouth crisis that, at a recent public meeting in Cumbria, many of the cars parked outside the meeting hall bore stickers which, at first sight, looked like official badges of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF).   

Only on closer inspection, however, was it apparent that the stickers were actually proclaiming 'Ministry of Arseholes F***ing Farming'.  When some of the drivers turned out to be smart, middle-aged, middle-class women, who would otherwise never so much as dreamed of uttering a profanity, the very fact of so stark a message bore eloquent testimony to the devastation wrought by this now-departed ministry. 

But, if the contempt for the MAFF is one thing, that contempt is now extending to the newly elected government as a whole and, in particular, to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and its new boss, Mrs Margaret Beckett, who yesterday brushed aside calls for an independent public inquiry on the government's handling of the foot and mouth crisis. 

Not least, comparisons are being made with the same government's enthusiasm in 1997 for a wide-ranging public inquiry into BSE, for which no expense was spared.  By the time Inquiry Chairman Lord Phillips of Worth Maltravers had delivered his sixteen-volume report in October 2000, the costs of the inquiry were estimated at £27 million. 

And while BSE was indeed a major crisis, with serious implications for both farming and the nation, its total costs, in the order of £5 billion, pale into insignificance compared with the £20 billion which the Institute of Directors estimates that the foot and mouth epidemic will have cost the nation, should it run into the autumn - which it shows every sign of doing.   

In purely economic terms, this is a disaster: the loss to the economy translates into something like an £8 billion loss to the Revenue, which seriously curtails Prime Minister Tony Blair's manifesto commitment to improve public services.  Small wonder he looked sombre during the Queen's Speech. 

He must know that his room for manoeuvre is now very limited as the money which could have been spent on better hospitals, more policemen and more teachers has already been spent on the obscene funeral pyres and stinking pits full of the rotting corpses of an estimated six million animals. 

But, if foot and mouth is an economic issue, it is also - according to many scientists and informed commentators - one of the most glaring examples of government maladministration in modern history.  In fact, it is very hard to think of any other example where a government agency has performed so badly, causing such great disruption and agony, to so little effect at such enormous expense.  On those grounds alone, a public inquiry is essential. 

These issues apart, there are many other serious questions which remain to be answered. For instance, although the former MAFF chooses to believe that the epidemic started in mid-February at Burnside Farm, Heddon-on-the-Wall in Northumberland, there is now a massive stack of evidence which indicates that the epidemic started much earlier - perhaps as early as September - and smouldered unnoticed over the winter until it erupted into the public consciousness. 

There are also the unconfirmed but persistent rumours that MAFF knew of, or suspected that foot and mouth was in the country much earlier than it has so far admitted, not least because of its inquiries in December and January about the availability of railway sleepers for funeral pyres.  The former Agriculture Minister, Nick Brown, has dismissed such reports as 'urban myths' but there is far too much smoke for there not to be any fire.  Only an independent inquiry could get to the bottom of this. 

Then there is the extraordinary debacle over vaccination.  First it was on the agenda, then it was off, and then it was back on again until, on 23 April, Nick Brown declared to incredulous MPs at the Commons Agriculture Select Committee that, because the number of outbreaks was declining, vaccination would not be necessary.   

Yet, this is after the UK had applied for, and on the 30th March had been given, permission from the EU to vaccinate animals in Devon and Cumbria.  But what does not seem to be have been reported at all is that, on 24 April - a day after Brown had ruled out vaccination - the EU granted permission for the UK to extend the programme into Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset.   

At best it looks as if one part of government did not know what the other was doing but, on the other hand, more sinister motives may have been at play.   

For some time now, rumours have been flashing through the country that some dark deal has been agreed with Brussels to the effect that we will destroy our animals and turn our countryside into 'theme parks' - in return for who knows what. 

If this seems a little far-fetched, someone must explain why, against the advice of all the senior government scientists with direct experience of foot and mouth disease, the government chose to extend the so-called 'contiguous cull' areas from two to three kilometres, so pulling in several million more animals for slaughter than even the most hardened 'kill 'em all' zealot believed necessary. 

Here, some of the explanation must lie in the government's choice of 'front man' to head up the government's scientific team, Professor David King, a career chemist who lists his speciality as 'surface materials'.  How is it that the government chose to rely on a scientist completely unqualified for the role, with absolutely no experience whatsoever of managing a measles outbreak in a nursery, much less the biggest foot and mouth epidemic the world has ever known? 

And therein lies a central question.  After Tony Blair had already postponed his election from the 3rd May, it was an open secret that the next available date was 7th June.  How so very convenient it was that, just as the epidemic seemed to be totally out of control, the figures started miraculously declining, so much so that Prof. King was, on the 23rd April, able confidently to predict that the epidemic would come skidding to a halt on - guess what - the 7th June.  If the figures were not massaged for entirely political reasons, then the coincidence is something that only a truly independent inquiry will be able to explain. 

By any measure, that completely independent public inquiry is necessary - not only to explain why the government has managed to 'blow' £20 billion, wiped out six million animals and torn the heart out of the rural economy.  It must also explain why the manifest incompetence of MAFF has allowed to put at risk the core projects dear to the heart of the whole country - hospitals, schools and the police.  And Blair, himself, having taken charge of the epidemic in late April, must explain his own role. 

But, more to the point, if this government found a public inquiry was necessary for BSE, it cannot argue otherwise for foot and mouth.  There are too many questions that demand answers.  What we now need is not so much 'joined-up' as 'grown-up' government.  In the BSE Inquiry, New Labour saw the opportunity for 'Tory-bashing'.  With foot and mouth disease, it only has itself to blame.  Is Tony Blair man enough to put his record to the test? 

ends.

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