We will do whatever we can to get ahead of this scourge on our countryside. These measures will leave farmers feeling desperate and appalled at the implications for our industry. But not to act in this way would be even more disastrous for Britain's livestock farmers. If we do not try to cull ahead of the disease then even more animals will be affected. The most dramatic measures are being taken in the worst centres of the disease in Cumbria and across the Scottish border in Dumfries and Galloway.
Outbreaks are already so frequent that the exclusion zones overlap.
Whole swaths of countryside currently dotted with sheep and cattle will have all animals removed. Both men have already lost all their own animals. The idea is to save the tourist industry in those areas and prevent further spread of the infection. With the disease still spreading yesterday the number of animals to be killed under existing measures rose to more than 219,000. This is already half the total number killed in the six months of the 1967 epidemic.