Political sketch
The nation was in uproar this week when a plant was discovered growing in an East Anglian field. It is feared that the oilseed rape may contain traces of genetically modified material, and the government was coming under increasing pressure to ensure all possibility of contamination was eliminated. Agriculture minister Nick Brown said "now you've found out I suppose we'll have to look like we're doing something", adding "Tony's had a baby this week; why don't you write about that instead?"
The incident has intensified the debate about the safety of GM foods. The government's chief scientific advisor Sir Robert May issued a statement in which he said "tests are being carried out in closely controlled conditions. From the modifications we have examined so far, we have found no threat to health or to the environment, but experiments will continue".
Environmental campaigners immediately seized on these remarks. "This is as good as an admission that GM foods are highly dangerous" said Greenpeace spokesman Dan Pinch. Speaking on a satellite link from the world biosphere conference in Tahiti, Mr Pinch told reporters that "It is clear that as a precautionary measure we must act to isolate and destroy all crops in England which might be tainted. The government must act now to ban this unnatural and harmful technology before we are overrun by armies of giant flesh-eating tomatoes".
The Prince of Wales issued his own warnings about the perils of interfering with nature in this year's Reith lectures. "It is not only a great moral wrong to meddle with the genes of organisms for economic and political ends," he said, "but it will also have disastrous practical consequences. Just look at what it's done to the Royal Family." The Prince called for our society to listen to "that inner heartfelt reason which sometimes despite ourselves is telling us that we are intimately bound up in the mysteries of life", and eat food altered by old technologies, not new ones. He declared that a natural life was the "desire, the joy, and the recreation of the people... only through this wisdom of the heart, maybe no more than a faint memory of a distant harmony, rustling like a breeze through the leaves... can our society be healed." He argued that rather than be bound by rational criteria, we should feel "an instinctive, heart-felt awareness [which] provides the most reliable guide as to our actions". The nation was urged to "cut through the almost impenetrable layers of scientific rationalism" which holds us back, and rejoice in the prejudices of our hearts. "Intuitive wisdom is so much more comforting than actual facts, especially for obvious hypocrites like myself".
The Prince's sentiments were echoed by the arts graduates who write the newspapers. "We don't understand genetics" wrote Paul Johnson in the Daily Mail, "and rather than trying and find out about what genetic modification means, about the very different forms it can take and following research into the effects it can have, we will simply create a hysterical demand for it to be banned."
Religious leaders did not miss the opportunity to have a go at science. "Science does not have all the answers" said Euan Triptych, Bishop of Norwich. "It can only evaluate data and come up with hypotheses which are then tested to produce theories which may not even turn out to be right... In over four thousand years of trying, science has still not unlocked all the complex secrets of the universe. I however can explain them to the world in twenty minutes using only the promptings of my heart and my ISDN connection to the Daily Telegraph." Rabbi Yaron Goldman warned that "science can only provide facts, it cannot make moral judgements. I on the other hand, do quite the reverse, and I am available for panel discussions and newspaper columns."
With such criticism mounting on his government, the Prime Minister rushed out a statement clarifying his position. "Rather than explain the case for continuing trials and attempting to convince people through reasoned argument, I will change my mind as the focus groups tell me I should." GM foods were defended though, by biotechnology multinational Monsanto, who said that Tony Blair should continue to do what he was told. "Genetically modified foods will bring great benefits to consumers in this country and in the developing world" said its UK spokesman, Michael Sacrament, "as well as to Lord Sainsbury's bank account. Not only can we produce more food, but by making our plants sterile, we are minimising the risk to the environment through cross-pollination with other plants. It is entirely a coincidence that this also means farmers will have to buy new seeds from us every year."
Maureen Hartup of Mums Against Mutant Meals however, was not satisfied. "We will not eat food made in a laboratory. We demand natural food for our children. We want it scraped from the carcass of a dead cow, processed into identical patties and flavoured with chemical compounds. GM foods are not even doused in anti-biotics; what sort of protection is that for our children?"
Tory leader William Hague meanwhile blamed the imposition of GM foods on the "liberal establishment". In a speech this week he reminded us that "the government which is trying to make us eat unnatural foods is also a government which is trying to make our children perform unnatural sex acts."
18th May 2000