THE foot and mouth crisis has entered a particularly ugly phase even though only four new cases were confirmed nationally yesterday – three near Penrith, Cumbria, and one near Whitby, North Yorkshire.

But on the political front, the situation worsened with another abrupt change in Government rules over compensation for culled animals – and allegations that some farmers might have deliberately infected livestock to get compensation.

The compensation changes could mean that North Yorkshire farmers – who were hit relatively late in the outbreak – should receive as little as half the compensation paid out in the early days, when generous payments were pushed through to speed the slaughter policy.

The NFU acted angrily saying: "It will be unfair not to retain this option for farmers until the crisis is over. We will continue to fight for standard payments to be backdated to those farmers whose animals were culled before the introduction of standard rates."

But even worse for the industry are allegations that farmers have been offered infected animals – at anything between £1,000 and £2,000 – to be introduced to their farms in order to get compensation payments.

Rumours of this have been known to Daelnet for three months and they have been rigorously investigated by the authorities but, so far, no case has ever been proved – which is why we did not report the rumour, one of hundreds which have been circulating all summer.

If, however, they ever were proved correct, the damage the reputation of farmers and farming would be disastrous.