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Government urges no panic over bird flu; panic spreads
6 Apr 2006
The government has urged the public not to panic after the discovery of bird flu in Fife. "The Prime Minister is appealing to the public to remain calm. There is absolutely no cause for concern and no need to change your plans," said Tony Blair's official spokesman, speaking from onboard Blairforce One shortly after it left Irish airspace heading south. "There is also no truth to the rumour that the Northern Ireland summit was supposed to last three days – the Prime Minister's emergency trip to South Africa has been in the diary for weeks."
With the rest of the government in hiding or abroad, it has been left to the British press to reassure the public that they are not all about to die. Polling by DeadBrain suggests that the results so far have been mixed:
- Areas with high Sun readership have already experienced acts of random violence against wild birds, with a number of sparrows being battered to death in Lewisham.
- Daily Mail readers across middle England are outraged and blaming Brussels Eurocrats for their open borders policy.
- Daily Express readers, most of whom are concentrated in the Daily Express offices, are concerned that swans near Princess Diana's burial site and memorial may have been deliberately infected by MI5.
- Independent readers are so far unaware of bird flu's existence in Britain, but do have detailed knowledge of anti-social behaviour in a small Kenyan village.
Television news channels have been quick to despatch their correspondents. BBC News 24 has a presenter stationed in the village where the dead swan was found, long after it was removed; Sky News has Kay Burley in a helicopter high above Scotland, swooping around showing viewers "what it's like to be a bird"; and Fox News has a map with an arrow pointing to Wales. Cash-strapped ITV News, now without its news channel, could not afford enough petrol to get to Scotland and so sent a brightly-coloured minibus to Guilford instead.
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