BRITAIN is to get its first beef-on-the-bone martyr - pub landlord Alan Coomber who served up two banned T-bone steaks to a couple of undercover environmental health officers.

Now, he faces prosecution and a fine of up to £5,000 or two years in prison.

But it is the government which could be the real loser. For this ban on beef on the bone is as unpopular as people believe it is unnecessarily over-the-top.

That is because for all the playing down of the BSE scare in the past, people believe the government has now gone too far the other way - when it ought to have spelled out the minuscule risks of eating beef on the bone and let consumers themselves decide.

That was an option the government had and rejected. And as martyrs like Mr Coomber emerge from the bloody-minded British sort that digs in when the law runs against the public grain, it risks deserved political damage in every instance if still refuses that option.

For when people end up being punished for serving up a steak the way they like, the sort of defiant hackles that saw off the poll tax and silly Sunday trading bans start to rise - and the government has to watch out.

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