Foot & mouth outbreak

Generally August is the quietest month of the year for large new stories and most of the newspapers are generally filled with trivia, silly season stories etc, but the calm of August has been shattered with the announcement an outbreak of foot and mouth in Surrey. This is very worrying news given the huge impact it had during 2001 along with the massive impact it had on rural life within this country. Hopefully, it is only an isolated incident but given the how the disease can spread the potential ramifications are huge especially if it has already been passed on to other animals.

With Gordon Brown having returned from holiday and already had a COBRA meeting it is another large scale incident to deal with, having already had the terrorist incidents and devastating floods it has certainly not been a quiet time and he has been Prime Minister for less then forty days! Unlike in 2001 we are also better prepared in terms of a plan of action in dealing with this event and this was clearly implemented when it was known to be foot and mouth. In his time in office Gordon Brown has already shown his considerable capacity to get on top of issues, a large-scale foot and mouth outbreak is a nightmare story but unfortunately politics is governed by events and I have no doubt that Gordon will show his leadership skills in managing this latest crisis.