FOR nearly three months now, as the foot-and-mouth tragedy has swept back and forth across Britain's green acres, the trench lines occupied by the now-familiar protagonists have acquired a kind of grim permanency.

One might have thought that sniping between the various opposing pressure groups would have abated slightly. Yet all the evidence seems to point to business as usual.

Familiar characters in the pro-hunting lobby continue to press any advantage that presents itself, while their equivalent in the opposing camp returns fire with equal enthusiasm.

Same old arguments, for and against. I cannot believe I'm the only person on this planet who is now entirely sick of the whole hunting debate. Bored rigid, in fact.

On the one hand, hunters can't seem to agree whether foxhunting is a sport or a pest-control service, while on the other, the antis seem to have a covert agenda that stretches from bloodsports to banning all forms of animal husbandry altogether.

I don't know which wearies me the most. Perhaps, if it's a toss-up between the vested interest of the hunters and the nauseating sentimentality of the "ickle moo-cow" faction, then the latter wins on points.

Caught in the middle are the farmers, or course. Faced with the spread of the disease and the MAFF death squads, they are basically bending their heads into the storm and hoping that a sunnier dawn will at some stage break across this ravaged landscape. My sympathy goes out to them.

As it happens, 95 per cent of the population chooses to eat meat. That means millions of British citizens are accessories to the death of animals. All the cosy supermarket packaging in the world will not alter this fact.

And while that remains the case, it would be gratifying if the minority of those hypocrite carnivores who start blubbing at the sight of dead animals in fields could go easy on the double standards.

For while it may be reassuring that your food is generally killed out of sight by strangers, my advice is that if modern reality bothers you, then obtain a copy of Lark Rise To Candleford as quickly as possible. And then join the real world.

However, all this masks the real catastrophe in the countryside - the fate of the people who rely on tourism for their living. For while farmers are at least being compensated relatively generously for their losses, there is, at present, no comparable safety net for those who must stand and watch as their hotel, holiday cottages business or myriad other activities collapse.

Caught in the no man's land of a seemingly unstoppable bacteria and the Blair Government's dithering, these are the people who now have the most to lose in this sorry affair.

But out of adversity a movement has been born. It's called Action Foot And Mouth and is a fast-growing national pressure group that will soon bring its guns to bear on the battlements of our rulers in Whitehall. One of its founders, Jeremy Roe, of Hartland, Devon, has been telling me all about its aims.

The organisation, which is receiving pledges of support from across Britain, represents a group of individuals who own businesses in the tourist trade and in associated industries. In a hard-hitting statement of intent, there are no punches pulled whatsoever.

Their introductory document says that at the beginning of February this year, people were anticipating a profitable year in 2001. Then the public was advised not to visit the countryside - and what was originally an agricultural problem gradually spread, like the virus itself, to infect associated endeavours.

The nub of the pressure group's argument is this - foot-and-mouth isn't a problem for the vast majority of those who live and work in the countryside. The problem is the manner in which the crisis has been handled.

For the strategy that has been employed since late February has caused, and continues to cause, tremendous damage to businesses in tourism and the rural economy that would have otherwise survived relatively unscathed.

As a consequence of the manner in which the outbreak of foot-and-mouth has been handled, many hotel and holiday cottage owners have suffered cancellations or postponements. The number of visitors to the countryside has reduced dramatically, devastating pubs, restaurants, craft centres and shops.

This in turn has adversely affected the suppliers to these businesses and increases the domino-effect in the countryside's business infrastructure. Mistakes have been made by various un-elected bodies, by Ministers and by civil servants, the policy statement continues.

These blunders have caused consternation, confusion and the collapse of enterprise in many areas. And now, the meltdown in our green acres appears to have come to a head - for Action Foot and Mouth is demanding corrective action is taken and that compensation should be paid to damaged businesses.

The group says that one of the most glaring examples of negligence was the message that the countryside was closed and people should stay away. This edict was announced without thought for its implications.

In a bitter condemnation of the Government's handling of the disaster, the document adds that the disease is not an animal welfare issue. Foot-and-mouth is not killing hundreds of thousands of animals and leaving their carcases lying in Britain's fields, nor is it burning hundreds of thousands of animals, polluting the air and endangering the human population.

For it is the Government's response that is doing these things. Moreover, foot-and-mouth is a disease that is generally not fatal and can be vaccinated against. And, tellingly, the document adds that the disease's unacceptibility to the agricultural industry is based solely upon economic factors.

In other words, the pyres that have burned up and down the land since the end of the winter is purely to maintain the price of meat. There was never any evidence that the movement of tourists has ever contributed to the spread of the disease.

Conclusion? The closure of the vast majority of the countryside was unnecessary...

If businesses in Worcestershire and Herefordshire would like to know more about the group's aims and plans to lobby for action, they will find its internet address at action-footandmouth.co.uk

The crisis in the countryside, of which the present troubles are only a part, will soon be one of the major issues facing politicians. It is cruelly ironic that the Blair Government, woefully ignorant of the land and its traditions, should have been caught out with such an event.

Like karma waiting to kick in, foot-and-mouth could not have picked a softer target than the lumbering form of Nick Brown and his penpushers.

For New Labour, the product of a thousand nocturnal after-dinner discussions in the Georgian drawing rooms of Hampstead and Islington was never, ever, adequately equipped to deal with a problem such as this.

Riddled with prejudice and a barely-concealed loathing amongst the rank-and-file for country people, this holocaust has laid bare the soft underbelly of those who control our destinies.

But, down in sleepy Devon, the spark of a resistance movement is growing. Soon, it will flicker and burst into a stronger flame. And when it does, the pyres that burn across this unhappy land will seem as nothing in comparison.