Foot And Mouth Spreads

Despite the Government’s supposedly swift action in the summer to curb the outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease which originated from its own laboratories at Pirbright, the disease has continued to spread.

While Foot and Mouth is apparently among the most contagious forms of viral infection for cattle, and therefore it comes as little surprise that it does have a tendency to rapidly spread, the British farming industry continues to suffer greatly due once again to Government incompetence.

As Gordon Brown enjoys the fawning attention of the media in rainy Bournemouth, and speculation reaches fever pitch about whether or not he will call an early election (not that anything meaningful would actually change, except perhaps a few new faces crying ‘me too!’) the crisis in British farming continues unabated.

Farmers in this country have had a raw deal for years, and it very much looks like little will change under Gordon Brown. In fact, I wonder whether Labour will be discussing Foot and Mouth and British farming at their annual conference at all? I would guess probably not.

End Of The Ming Dynasty

Thankfully the Liberal Democrat conference in dreary Brighton has finally come to an end, with the only potentially ‘significant’ event that might have occurred failing to materialise.

The Ming Dynasty (if it ever truly began that is) has been stumbling along now for the past two years since the Lib Dems deposed former leader and drunkard Charles Kennedy. Yet, despite murmurings of discontent, Ming’s equally incompetent underlings chose not to challenge his flagging and failing leadership.

Never mind though. The Liberal Democrats are a third-rate backwater political party full of far-left socialists, rubbing shoulders with anti-Semites and anti-capitalist eco-loonies – so it doesn’t really matter who leads them because nationally they’ll always be an electoral obscurity.

Despite the lack of any change in the Lib Dem leadership, Ming Campbell provided his opponents with an enlightening interview on the BBC’s Newsnight programme where he managed to elaborate on a number of his party’s non-policies, including crucially his opposition to an EU Referendum.

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More Unwanted EU Meddling

Not content to constantly interfere and meddle in just our lives in this part of the world; the EU has recently taken to interfering in the politics and remit of other international nations.

In August, the EU Commission sent a message to the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, strongly urging him to abolish the death penalty in his state and cease all future executions of those on death row.

The Commission’s note stated that, ‘There is no evidence to suggest that the use of the death penalty serves as a deterrent against violent crime and the irreversibility of the punishment means that miscarriages of justice, which are inevitable in all legal systems, cannot be redressed.’

Apart from there being plenty of evidence to suggest that the death sentence acts as a very good deterrent of violent crime and murder, what exactly has the legal process and laws of a self-governing state such as Texas got to do with the European Union? Not much is the answer.

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War Weariness

Does public opinion affect the focus and judgement of media coverage, or ultimately is it the other way around and do the newspapers largely influence what people believe?

It is an interesting question, and personally I am more inclined to believe that it’s the latter – that the print and broadcast media can and do often sway the beliefs of the general populace.

Take the report delivered by US General David Petraeus in Washington this morning on the effectiveness of the military troop surge implemented by President Bush. In his report General Petraeus commented that the objectives of the surge were largely being fulfilled, though further time would be needed for a better analysis.

I must say, in depth the report did not particularly interest me, as is no doubt the case for many other people. What was of interest was not necessarily facts and figures, but the overall picture that was painted. Was the surge working: yes or no? The answer seemed to be yes, it was.

Yet, as I watched the broadcast media’s coverage on General Petraeus’ report; that of Sky, ITV and the BBC, I was left with the distinct impression that even before it had been delivered, the journalists had set out to find fault with it from the beginning and to claim that it ‘did not represent the situation on the ground’, as one ITV reporter put it, because it did not fit their world view.

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