Leader: High-risk half-truths

THE CHARGE against the Government's handling of the BSE affair is that it has treated the public as ignorant, stupid and innumerate. This has become second nature not just to Tories but to politicians in general. They have become so enamoured of the sound-bite, so convinced that "presentation" is all, so accustomed to dealing in evasions and half- truths that they have lost the art of conveying plain, simple, unvarnished information. Our adversarial political system demands "categorical" assurances and denials. The threat posed by BSE was not, and is still not, susceptible to such simplicities.

Nearly all the questions about BSE can only be answered in terms of risk. Contrary to what politicians and pundits think, most people understand the concept perfectly well. They know that, if they spend a large sum of money in a casino or on the Stock Market, they risk losing it. They know, too, that, if they bet on a single roulette number or a single stock, the risk is greater than if they spread their money around. They know that some risks are precisely quantifiable (like the roulette wheel), others less so (like stocks and shares). They take out insurance policies against the risks of early death, fire, burglary and subsidence.

People do not model their behaviour according to calibrations of risk, and it would be a dull world if they did. Some people will climb mountains but refuse to fly in aeroplanes. Almost everybody understands the very big risks involved in cigarette smoking. Nevertheless, millions carry on smoking while tobacco companies make money and provide jobs. The Government will not ban cigarette advertising, let alone order the closure of every tobacco factory in the land. Equally, it does not try to pretend that smoking is a low-risk activity. Its philosophy is that it warns the public of the risks, and leaves it to individuals to decide if they want to run them.

It takes this approach because it regards tobacco as a private industry selling to private consumers. Farming and food, though also private industries, are enfolded into government and so become part of the never-never land of Whitehall-speak, in which everything is packaged to minimise ministerial embarrassment and calm public criticism or concern. Was there a danger of an epidemic that the Government would be powerless to prevent? Perish the thought! As well ask ministers if there was any danger of a run on the pound or of mutiny in the Army. So we had bromides and denials, instead of a frank assessment of the risks.

BSE was so new and so strange that the risks were peculiarly hard to assess. That is no excuse. Ministers said that the risk of the disease crossing the species barrier to humans was insignificant. Wrong. It was unquantifiable and there is a world of difference between those two words. Since the spongiform disease had crossed one species barrier (sheep to cows) but not another (sheep to humans), a betting person might have reckoned the odds at 50-50. Even now, nobody can quantify the risks of eating beef or beef products. Nobody can be certain the controls on the removal of offal from carcasses are always observed; nobody can be completely certain that it is safe to eat even prime beef. Yet Douglas Hogg, the Minister of Agriculture, repeats his assurance that he is "eating beef with confidence". What is this supposed to mean? Does he eat it with the same confidence as he eats a garden lettuce? No doubt Mr Hogg crosses the road with confidence but he would be a fool if he failed to look both ways before doing so.

Politicians hate to admit ignorance or uncertainty. They must always seem to be in control. The public must never be "alarmed" except over what the opposing political parties might do. But because they tried to reassure at a time when they should have been gently preparing for the worst, the Tories are in bigger trouble than ever. Almost nothing they do will now allay public alarm. The risks of eating beef, ministers try desperately to tell us, are lower than they have been for a decade. They are very probably right, but nobody believes them. The public have made another risk assessment for themselves: the chances of a minister telling lies, or at least half-truths, are very high. This government has already robbed them of their jobs and the value of their houses. They are not going to allow it to poison them as well.