Culling cattle not good for reaping votes

ANNE McELVOY argues that Tony Blair is in a no-win situation with the effects of the virus creeping ever closer.

LONDON - Contrary to the reassurances of the British Government's chief veterinary officer, foot-and-mouth disease can be contracted by humans, albeit only those of a particular breed, kept in close and unhealthy proximity to one another.

The British Conservatives contracted BSE, or mad-cow disease, on top of all their other afflictions, and the result was a cull of historic proportions.

New Labour rhetoric on the subject has long featured the accusation that it was Old John Major's mismanaged farmyard that "gave us BSE." The Tories were indelibly associated with the outbreak.

Suddenly, Prime Minister Tony Blair has woken up to the unwelcome prospect that foot-and-mouth could have a similarly nasty effect on him.

In the early stage of an animal plague, a Prime Minister generally prospers by adopting the benign and consoling manner of Vicar-in-Chief. All the Opposition can do is murmur good will. But the subsequent political epidemiology is brutally changeable.

If the outbreak defies initial prognostications or evades the best efforts of the responsible agencies to stem it, people quickly become distrustful of the official line. The Government looks rattled, and the Opposition gains an open flank of attack. That is where Britain is at now.

This week, the side-effects of the plague reached Westminster. Sensibilities have become raw, the smooth language of reassurance ambiguous. The Minister for Agriculture, Nick Brown, courted disaster by declaring that the disease was "under control," in the same way that the Tories discredited themselves by saying there was "no risk" of BSE posing a danger to people. False certainties of that kind jar badly with the communities affected and do not assuage public concerns.

So far, foot-and-mouth has kept its disinfected distance from Blair's Downing St pen. But it is creeping closer by the day.

An Irish minister's attack on Britain as the "leper of Europe" for alleged inaction over the disease and the discovery of a number of cases in France opens up territory that a pre-election PM would rather keep firmly closed: namely, the impact of the disaster on the UK's standing in Europe.

Blair is deeply sensitive to international image. One of the building-blocks of his superiority to the Conservatives was the idea that the Britain he led would be both more open and at ease with Europe and more respected on the Continent.

Alas, the emergence of yet another animal disease is seen in the other capitals as more proof that Britain is an erratic and rather primitive place, a persistent problem child in the European family. The allergic response of the Irish is likely to be echoed in Paris and Berlin.

Managing the general election against this background will test Blair's persuasive gifts to the full. Piles of burning carcases are one of the most powerful negative images imaginable in political communication. They convey horror, doom, pity and despair all at once.

The only sight that could outdo them in the league of the grotesque would be the Army being called in to assist at the slaughter of spring lambs trapped by movement restrictions.

That is not a set of background pictures you would want on the news, having come to power on the promise that things could only get better.

Until this misfortune descended, Blair had his sights fixed on a May 3 election. Playing down the seriousness of the disease was part of a deliberate strategy to avoid any disruption to the timetable. The Prime Minister remains extremely reluctant to delay his hour of truth, but if the countryside is pitched much deeper into quarantine, a postponement may yet prove unavoidable.

The plague has not yet peaked. Nor has the Government fully faced up to the scale of damage-limitation it will have on its hands, in terms of compensation for both lost livestock and damage to the tourist industry.

Beneath the panic lies a sense of deeper despair. Few politicians have the remotest understanding of the workings of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff). Politicians are an increasingly urban breed.

That applies equally to Blair - who does not have a natural affinity with green wellies - and to Opposition leader William Hague. The Tory leader affects a familiarity with the ways of the countryside based on his Yorkshire roots, but his experience as the child of a small family business and as a management consultant hardly make him an expert in animal husbandry.

But the strain falls squarely on Blair. Criticism of the ministry's handling of the crisis can swiftly turn into a broad anti-Government assault.

The Conservatives, while insisting that they would never "play the foot-and-mouth card," are now set to increase the pressure.

Comments by the shadow Agriculture Minister, Tim Yeo, who said the mobilisation of the Army should be accelerated, were the first shot across Blair's bows.

Yeo is a shrewd and experienced player in departmental politics. By prodding the Government to act more decisively (ie, kill more animals faster), he opens up the risk-free option.

If Blair complies, he presides over a Reservoir Dogs-style animal bloodbath, with all the negative connotations. If he does not, he can be accused of failing to show mettle.

It may be true, as New Labour strategists insist, that few parliamentary seats are rural and even fewer of those are Labour targets. But the epidemic is shifting the urban-suburban perception of farmers for the better. Their reputation as subsidy-hungry complainants is being replaced by a perception of people assailed by a cruel misfortune. The more that meat products disappear from supermarkets or prices rise, the more receptive wider society will be to their allegations - justified or not - of Whitehall incompetence.

From Blair's point of view, there is no obvious way to avoid the risk of failure. It is one of those moments when a leader feels both the full burden of office and his limited potency in the face of a plague. War, Blair must surely be remembering, is so much easier.

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Feature: Foot-and-Mouth Disease epidemic