BIRD flu is on its way. It will arrive here one day. It is inevitable. But very little else is.

There are sections of the media which seem to be willing it over here. They seem desperate for their scare story to come true.

Perhaps we should remember that the H5N1 virus has yet to be found in this country; that it has yet to mutate into a form that can be transmitted from human to human; that there have only been 92 human deaths around the world from H5N1, all in countries where man lives cheek by beak with chickens and none in western Europe; that countries in the Far East where the infection began are now being declared disease free; that cooking kills the virus so there is no reason to stop eating either chicken or eggs...

This is not the time to panic. This is not the time to destroy Britain's poultry industry.

Some parts of the media want to use a pandemic to beat up the Government in general and specifically Defra.

It would be more positive to acknowledge the difficult nature of the decisions that have to be taken.

There is great debate about whether our 30 million outdoor chickens should be ordered indoors to minimise the risk of them catching the virus from wild, migrating birds. The ravens at the Tower of London have been protected in this way, but the Government will only send out the order once H5N1 has been found in this country. By then, of course, it will be too late - it will be a case of shutting the henhouse door after the virus has bolted.

It would seem sensible to err on the side of caution.

But if the Government orders all birds inside now - against most farmers' wishes - there will be a sweep of panic, chicken-buying will stop and another arm of British farming will be lopped off.

If the Government has made the wrong judgement, its critics will descend upon it; if it has made the right judgement, no-one will notice because they'll be concentrating on the next scare story.

Let's hope it has got it right.