STANLEY’S THINKING AGAIN

[Stanley]

STANLEY’S THINKING AGAIN

19 January 2006

Two matters are bothering me at the moment. For those of you who aren’t abreast of agricultural matters in UK, the hot topic is the increase in bovine TB in the national herd. The chosen scapegoat is the badger as it is seen to be a reservoir for the disease and there are moves to cull enormous numbers of these animals.
After WW1 the old Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries started a country wide programme of regular testing of cattle for TB and by the late 1950s the disease was well contained. You can see what’s coming can’t you, after that success they lowered their guard and reduced expenditure on testing with the predictable result that it has flared up again.
My problem here is that from previous experience we know that the key to suppressing the disease is testing and culling of the domestic herd, it worked before. There is no certainty that the badgers are the origin, it could just as easily be that cattle are infecting the badgers or wild birds are infecting both. The truth is almost certainly that the wild life and the cattle are equally guilty of infecting each other.
It seems to me that the proposed remedy for the situation is driven by the political imperative to provide a simple and easily understood solution, kill the badgers. I am afraid that this will prove to be wrong, the cause of the increase, apart from neglect of prevention over the last 30 years, is almost certainly the greater movement of cattle by road. The system of passports necessary to identify cattle and make them traceable doesn’t include any means of indicating that they have had a recent TB test. Surely it would be sensible, even if it was not popular, to make a recent TB test a prerequisite to removal of a beast from one location to another?
Another hoary old question has reared its head, the public demand for a pardon for the 306 British soldiers executed in the field in WW1. I heard a WW1 survivor being interviewed on Radio 4 yesterday and he hit the nail on the head, he said they were shot because they were exhausted, he also suggested (but nobody took this up) that officers shot men in the field if they were not advancing fast enough. Disturbing stuff. The legal eagles are telling us as usual that a blanket pardon, whilst not impossible, would be ‘very difficult’ and cite the fact that it would be a mistake to judge past events by modern attitudes. I don’t buy this. My mind goes back to something I wrote six years ago.
Remember also the poor lads who were shot for cowardice in the face of the enemy. This was usually done just before a ‘big push’ to encourage the others. We shot 306, far more than anyone else including the Germans. I always remember the reply that Haig’s staff got from the general in charge of the Australian and New Zealand troops when they asked him why they didn’t shoot deserters. “No, the Germans are doing enough of that without our help!”
I can’t see any reason to revise this opinion. I don’t remember any evidence that the ANZAC troops were any less courageous than ours. It is time to by-pass the lawyers and lift this weight of guilt off the surviving relatives.

19 January 2006