Wales - the stamp of Approval.

This week's news of an OBE for the architect of cattle carnage in Wales, Christianne Glossop, comes as no surprise. But in 2011, the lady was the farmers' hero, when she announced the following, in a video message:

'We have a big TB problem here in Wales. And it's quite clear that if we're going to succeed in eradicating this epidemic we absolutely have to tackle all sources of infection. We have infected cattle and we are testing and slaughtering those infected cattle on a regular basis. But alongside that we must deal with infection in other species. One of the biggest problems is our wildlife reservoir of infection particularly in the badger population. Killing the Badgers will make a big difference to the level of infection in the countryside and we know from scientific studies carried out in England that it can also have a direct impact on the incidence of infection in cattle.

OK so far? And in 2011 Ms Glossop continues with her vision:

A long term study that took place in England a number of years ago now showed us that culling badgers can directly reduce the incidence of infection in our cattle herds. And that's what we are preparing to do here in Wales. The long term study that took place in England - The Randomised badger culling trial, set out to ask the question - Can culling badgers have an impact on incidence of infection in our cattle population? And what that study showed was that, in fact, it can reduce the incidence of infection in cattle and that that benefit can last over a significant period of time.

She expands on that statement too:

The areas that were culled have been studied in the 3 - 4 years following the end of badger culling and the benefits continue to be shown and so the great news, great new evidence that was published just two weeks ago now, showed us that the benefits of badger culling can be seen up to 3 - 4 years following the end of culling.

And finishes with the following:

It's really important to remember though that if we are going to be successful in our TB eradication programme here in Wales we must tackle infection in all species. And so alongside our plan to cull badgers we are also bearing down hard on infection in the cattle population. We're carrying out more testing we're removing cattle from the herds and slaughtering them as rapidly as possible and we're also working with farmers across Wales to raise standards of bio-security to reduce the risk of introducing infection into our farms”.

We think that Ms Glossop makes it clear in her video, which can be seen on this site with the transcript above, that culling badgers is an essential part of curtailing the rise in bovine TB. It is. And in 2010 she was given a roadmap of how to do that. Sadly, that was a worse shamble than the English RBCT. She had been royally shafted. But this lady was for turning. And while slaughtering just shy of 90,000 cattle in the Principality during her tenure (2010 - 2019 ) barely a single tuberculous badger was culled. A few were vaccinated at vast expense. Farmers Weekly report the huge increase in cattle slaughterings recorded for 2019. The highest on record. So in Ms. Glossop's case, OBE has to be an acronym not for Order of the British Empire, but for Obscene Bovine Extermination.