DESPITE the fact that only three news cases of foot and mouth were reported on Sunday, more and more scandals over the Government's handling of the disease broke over the weekend.

The worst was a leaked report from a top scientific adviser, Dr Paul Kitching, which claimed that a quarter of the farms where massive culls have taken place had been wrongly diagnosed.

If true, this means that more than half a million animals have been killed unnecessarily - a huge blow to farmers and a vast cost to taxpayers.

In another alleged cock-up, it was also suggested that the first reported case in Northumbria may have been caused by untreated pig swill from an army camp instead of - as first thought - from Chinese restaurants.

This allegation was heartily denied by Agriculture Minister Nick Brown - who is widely expected to lose his job after the next election - but it did emerge that the army does feed its troops on cheap foreign food.

This, in itself, was taken as an insult by British farmers who, even before foot and mouth, were undergoing the biggest slump in incomes since the 1930s. It also produced an enormous irony because it is widely believed that it was the army, called in too late according to many experts, that has been the key player in curtailing the spread of the disease.

To many observers, the constant leaks of anti-MAFF stories are a signal that the Ministry is about to be scrapped. Many of its duties have already been taken over the Food Standards Agency and Nick Brown himself spoke over the weekend of the need for drastic changes.

So the crisis - with luck - might be reaching its end but the inquest has already started.

Other developments include:

• The Government is reported to be considering plans to pay farmers for their role in protecting the landscape as well as producing food, a move that conservationists have been urging for at least a decade.

• MAFF officials will meet protestors in Northumbria today after they reported that lorries carrying animal carcasses to rendering plants were leaking blood onto roads.

• Some 250 Cumbrian farming families, devastated by the outbreak, are being offered free three-day midweek breaks in local hotels and guesthouses. The Countryside Agency, which will fund the holidays, says that these families "desperately need a respite."