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Prime Minister Tony Blair's recent pointed criticism of radical activist opposition to genetically modified crops should provide a prompt to that part of the scientific community, which might otherwise have had reservations from a political standpoint, to speak its mind. (650 words)

That Blair is a staunch advocate of scientific evidence should be of no surprise to any one. A characteristic of New Labour, which was largely of his making, as opposed to the Old Labour, is experience of, and belief in, higher education. It would, therefore, be out of character for him not to have confidence in science.

He was, therefore, a very safe speaker for the prestigious Royal Society, which he addressed in May. It was equally a supportive audience for him. Further it was to be expected that he would reaffirm his belief in science, concern over scientific education and the adoption of technology, biological and other, that provides the eventual pay off for investment in education.

The part of the script that might not have been anticipated was the open and very pointed criticism of activists who oppose the adoption of biotechnology almost without regard to the benefits to society. As these activists are generally perceived to be on the left of the political spectrum, some very much more so than others, they must be regarded as natural constituents for Mr. Blair. And any consummate politician, which Mr. Blair surely is, would avoid antagonizing potential friends in this way without good and immediate reason.

In a political context it must seem that Mr. Blair believes that increasingly he has less to loose from left than he can gain from the centre, or right, on these issues. Or more simply put, the political wind is blowing cold for opponents of such issues as genetically modified crops and proponents of such matters as animal rights at the expense of society at large.

Also with Labour, New and Old, having been re-elected with a large majority for a potential five-year term in office, he may be anxious to move the genetically modified crops agenda along so that it will be done and dusted well before the next general election.

In truth the main stream activist organizations do not seem to have been very active on the biotech front. And the "real" or radical activists who are still at it may not be receiving the publicity they have in the past. They did, of course, take advantage of the publicity that the Prime Minister's comments provided.

What was particularly interesting about the mini-offensive that followed was its personal rather scientific nature. It centred on the Prime Minister's motivation for taking a pro science stand. It also attempted to implicate other cabinet members with self interest stemming for their past association with the scientific community as though there was something immoral about this.

Implicit in this may well be an increasing recognition that the scientific debate is one that they are losing. It may even be that those who really care about the environment are beginning to realize that genetically modified crops can provide real conservation benefits.

Although Greenpeace-UK still lists GM crops as one of nine of its campaigns it has not chosen to update it website since last October. And other major activist organizations seem to be downgrading GM crops on their list of priorities. Surely whenever genetically modified crops are otherwise in the news, as was the case when the final sites for the British governments farm-scale environmental trials were announced, these organizations are not shy about expressing long discredited views. But none seem to see it as the issue it was a couple of years ago.

This was undoubtedly known to the Prime Minister. And he was probably addressing his views to the radical or "real" environmental cells that are attempting to keep GM crops alive as an issue. These groups are probably not influential and so being critical of them and supportive of a scientific approach present minimal risk for the Prime Minister. Other will undoubtedly pick up on this and the science will at last begin to be heard.

July 24, 2002