Joined up government? Or join the dots?

It is hard to believe how stupid our politicians and civil servants can sometimes be. The Department of Health funded some climate change research, which was published in The Lancet. It suggested that getting rid of 30% of Britain’s cows and sheep would mean less methane produced and, with less meat eaten, our intake of saturated fat would go down, thus cutting heart disease.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham gave a speech, calling it a “timely report”. He brought in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, getting Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband to add his name to this wonderful idea. Improve the climate and improve the nation’s health at the same time. Why had nobody thought of it before?

Why had nobody thought to tell the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)? Cows and sheep are their department. “Hate to rain on your parade, chaps”, they said, “but the kill-a-cow, save-the-world” idea might have a few flaws. For a start, there was a chance that Britain’s farmers might object to 30% of their livestock being slaughtered, even if the country would have a heck of a barbecue. True enough, the National Farmers’ Union hit the roof.

Even if the cattle were killed, it would not stop people eating meat. We’d simply import more from places like Brazil and Argentina, accelerating the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest, hardly a benefit for climate change.

The screech of a handbrake turn could be heard from Whitehall. The Department of Health claimed that Andy Burnham had never actually endorsed the report. In fact, he was a devout meat-eater. Hated vegetables. Wouldn’t eat his greens, no matter what his mummy said. The press people at the Climate Change office stopped shredding data long enough to say that they too had never thought it a good idea. Whatever gave anybody the idea they did?

What is truly scary is that these are the people who run country. They don’t even appear to be aware that, according to Duncan Clark in The Guardian, being a veggie is no better for the environment than being a carnivore: some dairy products are actually more “carbon intensive” than meat, with hard cheese, for instance, having a bigger carbon footprint per kilo than chicken. It is only Vegans who really cut emissions.

Whitehall used to be famous for its farces. It looks like it soon might be again.