What The Papers Say: Labour’s swift action gives plenty to beef about

The decision to ban beef on the bone put Whitehall on the horns of a dilemma. Leader writers and commentators showed consistent sympathy for the financial ruin facing farmers and condemnation for the rush to implement a ban. Broadsheets and tabloids united against agriculture minister Jack Cunningham for his decision-making on the hoof. By an act of gross mis-timing, the issue clashed with farmers’ protests against foreign beef imports, forcing the Government ’off message’. Some saw it as a further turn of the screw by metropolitan New Labour against rural Olde England.