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email received March 11 2006

Dear Mary

We have just received another interesting internal MAFF document. This one is dated March 21 2001 and is from the (then) Minister of State, Helene Hayman and is to the Minister.

The letter is entitled

FMD - Getting ahead of the game.

( I am not sure that anybody else considered FMD to be a game)

The most interesting sentence is in the final paragraph where she states

"All this is aimed to shift gear - to give the impression (my italics) we now know what we are facing; it is a long and difficult road, but the Government has action in place to tackle each of its individual components. The suggestions included 'Putting forward a package of interim measures( on imports, swill feed and movement restrictions etc.) to reassure people we are doing something immediate to prevent reoccurence while we consider the broader issues"

We have also received a letter dated March 22 from Mr Andrew Slade (Principal Private Secretary at MAFF) to Mr David North at 10 Downing Street. We are expecting further internal documents and if there is anything of public interest I will forward them to you. I am aware of various journalists who log on to your website first thing every day.

Kind Regards

Robert