TODAY we see evidence of how the scourge of foot and mouth disease is reaching every corner of life in East Lancashire.

We might think of ourselves as mainly an industrial area but the pack of cards effect of this agricultural plague shows that the health of our primary sector is vital to everyone.

Just when it looked as if we had largely escaped the worst, a single case in the Ribble Valley last month has escalated to 19 in a fortnight.

The ramifications are immediate and far-reaching. It is difficult to think of any facet of life that is immune.

Schools are disrupted at a crucial time in examination timetables because pupils dare not come into the classrooms.

All kinds of businesses in the heart of the countryside have become virtually cut off from personal communication because roads are closed because of the risk of spreading infection.

Transport, textile manufacturers, event management companies, markets as well as food production ventures are hit because their customers, or supply of raw materials, rapidly dry up as restrictions on the movement of animals -- and people -- are imposed. Tourism -- which many farming families also depend on for a living income -- ceases immediately and the casualties are not just restaurants, cafes, hotels, pubs, souvenir and craft shops, museums and all the other various places where people spend their money on a day out.

The companies that supply them with goods and, as we see today, even town centre shops selling outdoor equipment suffer.

The falling amount of cash in circulation inevitably hits post offices, building societies and banks plus of course the local authorities who rely on locally collected taxes like business rates to fund health and social services which are put under greater strain.

Politicians seem reluctant to talk about such a depressing subject as polling day looms. But after Thursday our local and national elected representatives must not hesitate to take the steps needed to help get so much of East Lancashire back on its feet.