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Election tide is not an easy time for politicians, particularly where there is conflict between the interests and opinions of the electorate. Genetically modified crops is such an issue in the UK. But the major political parties seemed to have found a place to park the issue. This most political of issues seems destined to be decided by civil servants in Brussels. (800 words).

Of course, our generally democratic form of government provides us with the opportunity to elect a member of parliament(MP) to represent our interests. Once elected then our MP, together with the party he represents, has the responsibility to decide where our interests lie and act on issues accordingly.

We may not like the outcomes, but that is not to say our MP has not acted appropriately. He is elected to represent our interests rather than our opinions and in most instances he almost certainly knows more about the issues than we do, and is, therefore, better equipped to assess where our interests lie.

Come election time, however, the MP has to face the reality of popular opinion, and reflect it if he is to get reelected. On some issues our interests may be at variance with our opinions. Such an issue is that of genetically modified crops. All the scientific and practical evidence suggests that the delays in the adoption of the technology is and will continue to cost the country dearly. Further, there is no evidence genetically modified crops, if appropriately managed, pose any threat to health or the environment. Clearly our interests are in the adoption of the technology.

Environmental groups have, however, found the issue an attention grabbing one and have been able to raise concerns sufficiently for a majority of people still to have concerns about the technology. This, of course, is very well known and, at election time, respected by politicians and political parties.

Genetically modified crops became of age as a significant issue for the UK public in 1999 when environmental groups ambushed the publication of three high profile reports which generally exonerated the technology. After their field day with BSE, the mad cow disease, the tabloids recognized a circulation swelling opportunity and Frankenstein foods were born. Even, the British Medical Association was fooled.

Faced with a gaping hole between the advice it had received from high profile political and scientific sources and tabloid generated popular opinion, the government managed to engineer an excuse to delay decisions with a three-year farm scale assessment of environmental issues. It, thereby, bought some time, or so it thought.

The issue, however, was to be too good a one for environmental activists to allow to be sidelined in this manner, or to be decided by scientific study. The issue was kept alive by the attempts of the activists to sabotage the study. And they were particularly active during the 2001 general election when, of course, politicians were most attentive to our opinions and least so to our interests.

The studies are now complete and the reports published. There was no evidence that genetically modified organisms had any impact on the environment but that the manner in which they were used could effect bio diversity, the selected method of measuring environmental impact, positively or negatively.

Both sides claimed a victory. And this undoubtedly gave the politicians and political parties the clue as to how to park the issue. Simply adopt a policy that seems to accommodate both sides.

The Government has concluded there is no scientific case for a blanket ban, but "a precautionary approach" necessitates case-by-case assessment. This sounds like a scientific approach but probably is not. The implication, however, is that no commercial production of genetically modified crops is expected until 2008 at the earliest. This, after the three-year farm scale trials have been completed, is three years away.

The opposition Conservatives would "... ban any commercial planting of GM crops until or unless the science shows that this would be safe" which might appear to be reference to a milestone passed. The Conservative shadow environment secretary, however, is reported to have said that gene-spliced crops would have no future under a Conservative-led government in Britain unless conclusively proved to be safe, which suggests otherwise.

The issue might seem stalled. But as member states of the European Union have also failed to come to agreement, decisions are referred to the European Commission who are bit by bit opening the European door to genetically modified crops. As the political process has failed, so paradoxically the issue has been referred back to civil servants for resolution.

One wonders quite why and how it got into the political domain in the first place. Such technical matters are best decided by those who know and not those who don't want to know.

April 15, 2005