New scientific evidence published yesterday on one of the bitterest countryside controversies – calls for a mass extermination of badgers – add even more to the confusion which has affected the problem for the best part of a decade.

And it fails to answer the biggest question involved: do badgers spread tuberculosis to cattle, as farmers claim, or is it the other way round and cattle give the disease to badgers, as bodies like the RSPCA insist.

In two parallel trials set by the previous Government, one field tests in Gloucestershire and another computer-based model on ways to treat the spread of bovine TB, came up with a mixed result: a vaccine can reduce the badger’s ability to spread the infectious spread of the disease by up to 75% but cannot stop the total spread.

But neither can large scale culling, which caused massive public outrage when first suggested by New Labour. So Government vets are now recommending a combination of both.

This writes, our countryside commentator John Sheard, is likely to satisfy neither the farmers nor wildlife lovers in a situation which has been exacerbated by a massive PR, mistake by the new Coalition to allow farmers to shoot badgers which, until now, have been a protected species.

But the key question chicken or egg questions have not been answered: are cattle or badgers the cause of the spread of the disease, which has now moved north from the West Country and has been reported in Derbyshire.