Beef-on-the-bone hopes dashed


26 May 1999


Beef-on-the-bone hopes dashed


FARMERS hopes that the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly would scrap the ban on beef on the bone have been dashed.

It has emerged that the advice to ban it was signed not just by the chief medical officer in England, but also by his counterparts in Wales and Scotland.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats said they would stand by medical advice.

Christine Gwyther, the Welsh agriculture secretary, avoided a confrontation when the Assembly by referring the matter to the agricultural committee.

Ms Gwyther, embroiled in controversy as a vegetarian with responsibility for the meat industry, is the subject of a wry comment by a letter writer in The Daily Telegraph.

The writer asks whether the minister would be comfortable with a beef-eating omnivore as spokesman for the vegetarian lobby.

Another letter writer in The Guardian suggests that the recent protest about her appointment – “baying for blood” – confirms “rational suspicions about the outcome of meat-eating”.

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