THE GOVERNMENT'S new countryside "csar" Lord Haskins, who got off to a bad start at the weekend by criticising farmers, poured oil on troubled waters by admitting that foot and mouth had "terribly affected everyone" in the industry.

Lord Haskins, chairman of Northern Foods and himself a large-scale farmer in the East Riding, discovered that his new job would be no bed of roses after saying that farmers who had received compensation for culled animals had done better than those whose livestock had survived.

In the uproar that followed, Downing Street took measures to disassociate Prime Minister Tony Blair - a close personal friend - from the remarks. Yesterday, Lord Haskins began work to held restore rural fortunes in Cumbria, the county hardest hit in the country.

But he pointed out that farmers could not expect to continue to "live on handouts" in the future - "those who do are going to be living on borrowed time."

Meanwhile, there was just one new case in the UK yesterday, in Cumbria near Penrith. It is the only new case throughout the UK since Sunday.