Howard should win medal for brass neck

WHEN they hand out the medals for the Beef War campaign, Michael Howard, Britain's Eurosceptical, hang-em and flog-em Home Secretary, is sure to get the one for brass neck.

The man has been variously described by British newspaper columnists as the worst Home Secretary since Henry Brooke (1962-64, Peter Brooke's father), or since Sir William Joynson Hicks (1924-29), or, quite simply, the worst ever.

At a press conference in Luxembourg, he sat with a sickly smirk on his face, suggesting he was enjoying scuppering the EU's tentative co-operation on crime and terrorism. But, as any general will warn, beware of the squaddies that tell you they enjoy war.

There is a real sense here that Britain has, to continue the military analogy, shot itself in the foot with its disruption tactics. They nearly came a cropper in the Commission, a victim of commissioners whose portfolios were being blocked. They would have achieved a qualified majority at the Farm Council but for the fact that the Benelux countries decided to become, to use Ivan Yates' phrase, "as bloody minded as the British".

And Mr Rifkind's gesture on Slovenia will do little to ease tempers at Monday's Foreign Affairs Council all its business is conducted by unanimity.

Behind the histrionic headlines this week, however, real work has been done. The lifting of the ban on gelatin has opened the way for consideration of a framework for the lifting of the overall ban.

Most importantly of all, the British Agriculture Minister, Mr Douglas Hogg, presented ministers on Monday with a long awaited 120 page report on Britain's proposed eradication strategy "a coherent, vigorous and scientifically justifiable strategy", the document claims.

The report points out that by the end of the year Britain will have slaughtered nearly one million animals although the bulk of these being elderly cows would have been slaughtered anyway, but it is their removal from the food chain that is the key new factor.

Although the report consists largely of measures already in place or announced, such as the selective cull of 80,000 at risk cattle, British sources also, significantly, made it clear for the first time that the proposals are unconditional.

They will be implemented irrespective of the lifting of the export ban, a tacit acceptance that earlier British attempts to link the two had been tactically counterproductive. It is an assurance that will help to lower the diplomatic temperature.

The report also contains new proposals for a recall from all farms and mills of all feed material containing bone meal from mammals, and commits the British government to new legislation to make the storage of such feed illegal.

The move reflects the central British contention that action on animal feed is the most effective way to eradicate BSE, but also an admission, previously made, that measures taken in 1988 to ban the use of ruminant derived protein from cattle feed had been in sufficiently policed.

The figures certainly show that feed is the critical mode of transmission. New BSE cases in Britain fell from 34,370 in 1993 the point at which, given the disease's long incubation period, the feed measures would have begun to be seen to have effect to an expected 6,000 this year.

But the British report admits that of the total 160,090 confirmed cases of BSE (to May 10th), some 26,798 have occurred since the ban was lifted.

The substantial incidence of BSE in cattle born after 1991 is believed to be attributable to two sources either they became infected because mills allowed cross contamination through the use of common input pits and conveyors, or through farmers using up unfinished stocks.

There is also evidence, cited by the report, that as late as 1995 the law was being ignored in relation to matter going for rendring for animal feed. Tighter controls have now been put in place, but there are good reasons for Britain's fellow member states' skepticism about their assurances. Even if the entire British methodology were to be approved there is still likely to be demands for yet further control mechanisms.

The British proposals on the selective slaughter of some 80,000 at risk bulls are substantially unchanged and some member states still insist they are too limited. But the scientific evidence here tends to support the British case that to achieve significantly faster rates of eradication will require exponentially more slaughtering. This form of targeting becomes increasingly like looking for a needle in a haystack and, short of slaughtering the entire British herd at mind boggling expense, further culling would be largely window dressing.

There are still concerns expressed by some delegations that the British have not fully addressed the question of how to trace and identify animals born prior to 1990. They are, however proposing to introduce a system of double tagging of animals and "passports" to make future tracing easier and bringing the system more closely into line with the widely admired system in Northern Ireland.

British sources have confirmed that the agreement being sought on a framework for the lifting of the overall ban will include proposals on the step by step lifting of the ban on third country exports, on exports of calves born since May, exports from certified BSE free herds, and possibly of beef over 30 months from grass fed herds.

A minister in the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Lord Lindsay, confirmed, however, that they do not intend to seek special regional exemptions.

Of course, much of the argument is not just about science but consumer confidence. Member states will take their time studying the report and each stage in the process is likely to be seriously protracted, running all the way through the Irish presidency Mr Yates's worst nightmares are coming true.

Whether a "framework", or agreement on a broad approach, is possible before Florence depends entirely on whether the British genuinely want one and are willing to "de-escalate". But they are losing friends here by the day.