It was worrying that one of the lessons of the inquiry into the last outbreak in 1967-68 seemed to have been overlooked, in that burial was preferred to burning for disposal of the carcasses. But there are other questions too, such as whether vaccination is preferable to slaughter as a means of disease control in the first place, especially for a virus that, while highly infectious, is harmless to humans and not particularly damaging to animals.So far Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has set herself against an independent public inquiry with all the sulky conviction of a minister who knows that her position is unjustifiable yet who sees no political advantage in doing the right thing. Her feeble defence is that the last inquiry was “serviced” by the Ministry of Agriculture.This is, sadly, now part of a pattern with this Government. Its position on freedom of information has been exposed as dishonest.

A government that will not submit to open scrutiny is not a government that deserves to be trusted.. What is Iain Duncan Smith for? The leader of the Opposition is in the United States, disloyally disagreeing with government policy in prosecuting the war against terrorism – precisely the kind of crime of which the Conservatives used to accuse Labour when the ministerial boot was on the other foot. As Oliver Letwin, Mr Duncan Smith’s home affairs spokesman, admits, the Conservatives are “nowhere near” persuading the voters to trust them. Mr Duncan Smith’s unique selling point before he became leader, two days after 11 September, was his closeness to the US.

Tony Blair has trumped that, and trying to be more hawkish on Iraq is not going to win the trick back.The Tory leader may be right to draw attention to the threat from Saddam Hussein, but to open a second front against an Arab country would destroy the coalition against al-Qa’ida. In any case, the sensible policy would be to lift sanctions against Iraq in exchange for the return of UN inspectors charged with preventing Saddam acquiring weapons of mass destruction.His pointless trip to Washington is only the most recent missed opportunity to have left the Conservative Party looking just as trapped by the poisonous legacy of its past as ever it was under William Hague.And Mr Duncan Smith does not even have Mr Hague’s natural command of the Chamber of the House of Commons. That skill was clearly not enough, but its absence could damage his successor. Already the mockery of Mr Duncan Smith’s voice and his nervous cough has begun, and, once ridicule gains a hold, it can be difficult to shake off.To be fair to Mr Duncan Smith – and to his surprise choice as shadow Chancellor, Michael Howard – the Conservatives have made the right and necessary strategic decision to abandon the sterile focus on the euro.