Me me me too!

[eddie french]

It is not that well known that during the foot and mouth crisis a fair proportion of those white suited men on the telly every night were from Liverpool.
I know because I was a manager for the company that was supplying labour to the MAFF (Now Defra). Here is a short commentary on what I found to be true.

Note:
This was written one week before Tony Blair got himself re-elected as Prime Minister for a second term of office.
The Foot and Mouth epidemic was raging across the UK. The practice of deliberately infecting ailing farmsteads with the virus as a means to claw in some compensation was fairly wide spread amongst some of the older farmers who had had enough of the recent policy of set aside et al.




For just one thousand pound
you can taint the ground
Here's your ewe, infected through
In the trunk, close it. 'thunk'
Look out, don't laugh, Here comes the MAFF.

This old game's just not the same
Since set aside and rapeseed came
So hide the rams and keep the ewes
They'll fetch a mint for future do's

It's all controlled, or so we're told
There's less than one for each that's gone
Let's keep the count just as it is
And start again when 'T' gets his
It wont be long, just one more week
Then we'll see, it's oh so bleak.

So hand the grand and take the sheep
It's worth it just for one nights sleep
Close your eyes as they arrive
And when it's done, walk or better still drive.
(You'll be able to afford it by then)

[ChrisGeorge]

Originally Posted by eddie french

. . . The practice of deliberately infecting ailing farmsteads with the virus as a means to claw in some compensation was fairly wide spread amongst some of the older farmers who had had enough of the recent policy of set aside et al. . . .

Hi Eddie

I found your poem to be interesting, even eye-opening. It would appear to me you make a very serious allegation in the introduction to the poem, that farmers would actually infect their own farms with foot and mouth disease. It would seem to be to be a very hazardous even foolish thing to do if it occurred.

Chris

[naked lilac]

It is disgusting to think, how ignorantly greedy, People are.. Instead of finding a cure .. they just poison the ground and livestock more for a quick fix.. which obviously isn't a fix at all.. very sad...

[eddie french]

Chris,
Having been there on the ground I can assure you that this practice was undertaken by some of the more desperate farmers in the Southern Counties. It is also not too well known that the Foot & Mouth crisis came directly on the heels of a previous Swinefever outbreak in the same area which resulted in the mass slaughter of pigs similar to what was picked up by the media during the Foot and Mouth crisis. The Suffolk/Norfolk farming community was the worst hit in both epidemics. The strain on the farming community was immense during the period from 1999 - 2001.
I could go on for hours about this, reciting tales of conditions or tricks/practices carried out by both sides but I won't bore everybody.
Think about human nature.... 'the Big Purse' of Government Compensation was open and the industry was already in decline...