DITHERING...That's what we accused the Prime Minister of some weeks ago over his attitude to the possible delay of the county council, and perhaps general, election.

Well, where the Evening News goes - this was soon taken up by the national media and the rest, as they say, is history.

Now we are wondering...Can Mr Blair and his government be accused of dithering again, and this time over the handling of the foot-and-mouth crisis itself? And, in the process, pushing the country ever-closer to a nightmare scenario? Last week we revealed how a report commissioned by Parliament after the 1967 outbreak had predicted almost all of the actions required to combat any spread of the disease.

Then, only today, we are getting reports of the disease spreading further into hitherto "clean" areas. A NFU spokesman is reported as saying: "This is a nightmare scenario. It is a major setback and awful news". The NFU are right.

Apparently, according to some senior veterinary figures, the spread and depth of the disease could have been halved if effective measures, including bringing in Army personnel, only just now being used and had been introduced earlier.

The Government is blaming ineptitude and a series of blunders in their various departments responsible for supervising the campaign. What an indictment! What a shambles!

In our leader article last week we said that lessons should have been learnt from the Parliamentary report and questioned why they had not been.

Now this latest news belies belief. They talk of opening up the countryside to all and sundry for Easter, telling us all is under control and an end is in sight. And all the time the disease is running rampant into previously unaffected areas.

What are they playing at in Whitehall?

This is dithering on a previously inconceivable scale.

The country is paying the price of prevarication. And the price looks like being a lot higher than even the worst pessimist had predicted.