The human insulin used to treat diabetes is genetically engineered: the human gene that codes for insulin has been transferred into bacteria and yeast, a process that involves crossing the species barrier. Hardly anyone opposes this medical miracle, yet millions of people across Europe have been taught to feel vaguely uneasy about genetic modification in agriculture. By what rationale, asks Dick Taverne, can this technology be considered safe and ethical when saving lives in medical treatment, but not when used to make crops resistant to pests or drought to save people from starvation? With world population heading from six to nine billion, and with many of the poor becoming richer and therefore eating more meat, GM agriculture may be required to avoid a Malthusian crunch. But Taverne is optimistic. Irrational fears about GM crops have held back their development in post-scarcity Europe, but not in China, India and other places where they are a matter of life and death. Indeed, GM crops may end up becoming part of an increasing flow of technologies from south to north, reversing the pattern of the last 400 years. Closer to home, Taverne is even guardedly optimistic about turning the tide of "back to nature" anti-science sentiment in Britain. A Commons select committee recently said that the term "precautionary principle," which has become a friend to anyone who wants to block a new scientific development, should be dropped. And earlier this year David Miliband, then environment secretary, bravely declared that there was no evidence that organic food was more nutritious than conventionally grown food.
By chance, Taverne had a walk-on part in the recent swirl of excitement in British politics; he was the first Liberal Democrat elder statesman to declare that Menzies Campbell had to go. But the big question arising from recent events is whether Gordon Brown's slip-up over the election, followed by the crass political cross-dressing of the pre-budget statement, marks the beginning of the end for New Labour. Labour has seldom lost the political initiative since 1997, and so long as the domestic debate centred on reform of public services, it never looked like doing so. But the Tories have now begun to make the political weather. And, curiously, despite claims that the "old" system is moribund and the political speech is dead, they have danced back into contention thanks in part to a brilliant conference speech by David Cameron. Brown's reputation for moral earnestness and constitutional rigour has taken a battering, but he is not down and out. The debate over inheritance (and capital gains) tax cried out for a cross-party commission to chew over the long-term options. Before he took over, many people feared that Brown would throw too many problems at such commissions. But, as David Halpern argues, it may not be too late.
