THE tragedy of the latest outbreak of foot and mouth disease is incalculable in human and financial terms.

There seems no end to the trials being visited upon Britain's farmers by nature or successive British Governments.

The source of the foot and mouth is not yet clear but if, as feared, the source is South Africa then we need to be told why it took this Government three months last year to ban imports for the country when foot and mouth was discovered there.

Surely it was not, as cynics have suggested, because Tony Blair didn't want to upset Nelson Mandela before he addressed the Labour Party Conference.

What we are certain of is that the current spread of the disease has been far faster than previously because of Conservative and Labour governments' obsessions with inflicting European Union rules and bureaucracy on us.

Thanks to EU red tape and the subsequent costs, we now have some 800 fewer abattoirs than in 1990.

It is obvious to most people that if you have to transport livestock from Northumberland to Essex for slaughter the risk of spreading the disease throughout the country increases dramatically.

Anybody thinking that Tory 'Euroscpeticism' will stop further decimation of our country and countryside should remember that the Tories took us in to Europe, the Tories signed the Maastricht Treaty, the Tories took us into the disasterous ERM.

Labour has merely carried on the selling of Britain and crucially all three old parties will join the Euro, the Tories cynically whisper under their breath 'at least not for the lifetime of the next parliament' thinking that we are all stupid enough to fall for it.

Cllr Gregg Beaman

PPC UK Independence Party

Morecambe & Lunesdale