POLITICS
Just Mr Major's luck; he makes a good speech on the day the cows go mad
BRUCE ANDERSON There was once a resident of Manhat- tan called Fingelstein. Mr Fingelstein was a most unfortunate individual; he suffered afflictions on a scale that made Job's diffi- culties seem trifling. Finally, he could stand it no longer, so he railed at the heavens: `God, what have I done to annoy you?' Oddly enough, the clouds opened and God appeared, saying: 'I don't know what it is about you, Fingelstein, but somehow you piss me off.'
For Fingelstein, read John Major. I must now record some facts about the Prime Minister which I have hitherto concealed. He invariably walks under ladders. When he spills the salt, he never throws any over his shoulder. He cannot see a mirror with- out smashing it, and he always kicks black cats, especially on Friday the 13th. I have no precise evidence for any of these pro- clivities, but nothing else could explain the worst run of luck in British political history.
Consider the latest example. The Prime Minister gave a speech on Wednesday which contained some useful attacking material on education and jobs. It also drew on his own early experiences, which his advisers frequently urge him to do, but usually encounter resistance. The PM has a characteristic English reticence about expressing his deeper feelings in public. Anyway, on this occasion, he did talk about his background.
These days, speeches rarely make head- lines. But on a slack news-day, with little competition, Mr Major would have received a fair amount of coverage. As it was, he had to compete with the latest health scare.The British love health scares in the same way that children love ghost stories even though they know that, later on, they will be afraid to go to bed. When a health scare breaks, rational risk assessment instantly gives way to hysteria; so it is on this occasion. One might have thought that the absurdity of previous panic attacks might have taught us not to overreact. Who can now remember whether salmonella was a small fish or an unusual girl's name, listeria a shrub or a mouthwash? But that will not prevent a slump in the consumption of beef over the next few weeks.
Which will be wholly unnecessary. We are dealing with a disease which kills half as many people a year as die on the roads every year. It is also a problem that lies in the past: the necessary counter-measures were all taken before the end of the Eight- ies. Anyone who has caught CJD from eat- ing BSE-infected beef products will already have done so, and may as well go on enjoy- ing beef until the disease strikes.
There was a problem during the early and mid-Eighties. For many years, British farm- ers had been too keen on feeding beef cat- tle with animal protein made from ground- up sheep, or beef. They did so in pursuit of the bigger, blander beast beloved, alas, by the modern housewife. It often seems as if the British food industry, and many of its customers, will not be satisfied until meat tastes no different from the polystyrene in which much of it will be packaged.
Most of us find the idea of cannibal cattle unappetising. We want to watch cows chew- ing the cud, undisturbed by the thought that the cud in question might consist of the bovine equivalent of sheepburger, or even beefburger. But it appears that this aesthet- ic distaste also had a sound basis in food hygiene. By eating sheepmeat infected with scrapie — the ovine equivalent of BSE cattle were becoming mad cows.
Then BSE was discovered in 1986. The scientists informed their ministers the fol- lowing year, but advised them that there appeared to be no risk to humans. No one was entirely happy with that assessment, and precautionary measures did follow. In 1988, it was decreed that ruminants should no longer be fed on other ruminants; in 1989, it became mandatory for slaughter- houses to remove and destroy the brains and spinal cords from all cattle. Initially, that edict was not universally obeyed. Those who run slaughterhouses tend to be rough and ready characters, who dislike being mucked about (as it were) by unnecessary regulations. But inspections and prosecu- tions followed. The law is now fully in force.
The years passed, and the scientists kept on advising ministers not only that British beef was safe but that there was no evidence that BSE could spread to humans. There were, however, similarities between BSE and CJD, so research and monitoring continued. In 1994-95, a prob- lem emerged. It appeared that in Britain, and Britain alone, a hitherto unknown form of CJD had emerged. So the scien- tists asked themselves what phenomenon unique to Britain could explain this. Our higher incidence of BSE is one obvious answer: hence Wednesday's Commons statement. But before anyone panics, there have so far been only nine cases of this new variant of CJD.
Figures never deter hysterics: nor does sensible action. The Government restric- tions on the sale for beef of elderly cows are probably unnecessary; that will not pre- vent them from being deemed inadequate. Such bans do, of course, involve compensa- tion for farmers, and that problem caused some amusement on Wednesday. The Treasury had to agree the compensation terms — it will have to find the money but Ken Clarke was in Africa, while William Waldegrave, the Chief Secretary, owns a dairy herd and therefore has an interest. This necessitated a frantic search on Wednesday morning for a Treasury minister senior enough to authorise the dis- bursement who did not own any cows.
The Government was unlucky in another absence. Some ministers stamp their person- ality on their department with such aplomb that, ever after, they become archetypes. Thus it was with Castlereagh at the Foreign Office, Gladstone at the Treasury, Churchill and Thatcher at No. 10 — and Nicholas Soames as Minister of Food. Never had the man and the job been in such sublime har- mony. In Mr Soames's food days, he was not a mere Parliamentary Secretary of State: he was the great Glutton of State.
Angela Browning, the current Food Min- ister, has a healthy appetite, but she would not claim to eat for England. Nor would it be wise to recall Miss Cordelia Gummer to the limelight. The incident of Miss Gum- mer's hamburger seems to have passed into the public memory as the force-feeding of a terrified daughter by a brutal father, the worst maltreatment of any Cordelia since King Lear. In fact, the girl enjoyed her treat, and merely displayed a becoming shy- ness at having to eat it on camera.
There is nothing shy about Nick Soames, and now his Party needs him, in the ampli- tude of his appetite. For months, he has been looking for an excuse to jack in his diet; this is it. It is nothing less than his patriotic duty to consume enormous quan- tities of beef and beef offal in full view of the British media.
However hearty the meals which Mr Soames consumes, will Mr Major's luck ever change? The Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning, but Job did not have to fight a general election.
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