Badger Cull Starts

The oft-postponed badger cull began today and the landowners who run the BBC behind the scenes made sure it broadcast its usual propaganda, showing a sinister badger creeping round a cow in near darkness and interviewing farmers convinced that badger culling is vital. The BBC News website bears the headline "Badger cull begins in Somerset in attempt to tackle TB" (CLICK). Sky News took a different tack. Its headline reads "First Badger Cull Under Way Amid Protests". Both websites quote the shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh: "The Government's divisive badger cull will cost more than it saves and will spread bovine TB in the short term as badgers are disturbed by shooting. We need a science-led policy to manage cattle movements better and a vaccine to tackle TB in cattle. Ministers should listen to the scientists and drop this cull which is bad for farmers, bad for taxpayers and bad for wildlife" (CLICK). What nobody has mentioned is that Northern Ireland tests its cattle for bovine TB more often than England does. That's the key. Culling 5000 badgers, whether they have TB or not, is a brutal waste of time.