If this is the case, then we may be on the brink of a scandal that will certainly cost Mr Cunningham his job, but far more serious than that, may cost British consumers their lives, and destroy our beef trade for decades to come. But let's assume for the moment that Mr Cunningham is guilty only of frighteningly garbled logic. The inclusion in the ban of oxtail, an immensely popular cut of meat at this time of year, shows a mastery of misleading doublespeak. Even under the grim experimental conditions of being fed large doses of the disease, not a single animal produced traces of BSE in the tail bone. Imagine if Mr Cunningham had opted for a more restrained response to the new experimental findings by simply announcing the results of the work to the media and leaving consumers to make their own informed choice.
Consumers purchase the product entirely at their own risk.
The reaction of the public to the ban of beef on the bone shows precisely the contempt in which this hasty and ill-considered decision is being held. Far from having trouble shifting their beef, on or off the bone, most butchers are reporting a run on precisely those cuts which are to be the subject of the ban. Meanwhile, spare a thought for the nation's chefs. Every good restaurant kitchen has a pan of beef bones bubbling away on the back burner, providing the essential stock on which the finest cuisine is based. Many are understandably determined to defy the ban.