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Just a few days after the UK was confirmed to be free of foot-and-mouth disease, following the massive outbreak in spring 2001, this livestock disease is back in the news again.
| The National Farmers' Union (NFU) on 21 January 2002 published Lessons to be Learned, 'its first full review of the handling of the worst-ever foot-and-mouth outbreak', in which the UK government is castigated for - well, everything really. The first sentence of the NFU's press release describes the government's handling of the crisis as 'a catalogue of failures on every issue', and NFU president Ben Gill slates the government for having been 'ill-prepared, overwhelmed and, too often, incompetent' (1). (The document itself, by contrast, begins with the stated aim of being 'honest, fair, positive and constructive' (2).)
| It's often quite nice to see the government get a bashing - particularly over such a disaster as last year's foot-and-mouth crisis. But before the history of 2001 gets rewritten, it's worth remembering exactly what it was that the government did so wrong. There is no doubt a debate to be had about the government's handling of this livestock disease: but the national nervous breakdown sparked by foot-and-mouth was more to do with the way the government handled the rest of non-infected Britain. And no number of recommendations by the NFU about how foot-and-mouth should be handled next time around could prevent a rerun of the panic that we witnessed at about this time last year.
| As we argued on spiked at the time, at every stage, the panic about foot-and-mouth ran ahead of the disease (see Making a drama out of a crisis, by Jennie Bristow). Right from the moment when the first couple of cases were discovered, the UK press was filled with doomsday scenarios about 'another 1967' (the previous major outbreak of foot-and-mouth in the UK, which actually caused far less mayhem) (3). The government was quickly goaded into action - and apparently more keen to make grand 'do something' gestures than simply handle the practicalities of fighting the disease, it focused its intention fully on foot-and-mouth. This was the worst thing the government could have done.
| Does anybody remember, now, that the government postponed the general election, to send out the message that its attention was firmly focused on foot-and-mouth? The idea that national politics should be reorganised around a livestock disease in this way received little criticism. Indeed, when prime minister Tony Blair cut short the Labour Party conference to deal with aftermath of 11 September - a more significant event, in anybody's terms - he got more stick for that than he did by putting the general election on hold. Because of foot-and-mouth, national life was indefinitely postponed, with events from indoor bowls to major dog shows put on hold (4). Little of this seemed to have any practical use, in terms of halting the spread of the disease - but it fed into the spirit of national paralysis and mourning which engulfed Britain at the time.
| | | The government's real failure was to fuel the idea that life should be put on hold |
| Few people questioned, either, the saturation news coverage devoted to foot-and-mouth - although there have been complaints about the amount of media attention devoted to 11 September. And the more the news went on, the more surreal it became. Key images from the foot-and-mouth months include TV footage of the Gurkhas sent to the Black Mountains to round up sheep; Tony Blair and his missus sent off to exile in Yorkshire in a sad attempt to boost the rural tourism industry their panicking had helped to destroy; and tear-jerking chronicles of various animals on the sharp end of the foot-and-mouth restrictions, including 'Misty' the goat, 'Lucky' the lamb and 'Phoenix' the calf. Looking back, it's so bizarre it's almost funny. At the time, nobody was even smiling - for good reason, as this circus caused many people a great deal of trouble and heartache.
| The real failure of those in authority in spring 2001 was the way they fuelled the idea that life should be put on hold for a livestock disease. As spiked editor Mick Hume wrote at the time, 'We seem to have lost sight of any distinction between rational measures to cope with an animal disease, and the irrational attempt to put the countryside (if not the entire country) into quarantine' (5). Mired in irrational fears, the foot-and-mouth crisis encouraged Britain in its worst excesses of small-mindedness, miserablism and sentimentality.
| It's history now. But three months is a long time in politics, as it is in news and life. And of all the 'lessons to be learned' from the foot-and-mouth crisis, so far as the government goes, there is only one. Next time - don't panic.
| Read on:
spiked-issue: Foot-and-mouth
(1) NFU press release, 21 January 2002
(2) Lessons to be learned
(3) When foot-and-mouth didn't make the front page, Brendan O'Neill
(4) National life is indefinitely postponed, Josie Appleton
(5) Things fall apart, Mick Hume
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