BRITISH beef was finally back on the menu in France this week - but that did not stop the knives coming out for Agriculture Secretary Margaret Beckett.

Mrs Beckett - a less than popular figure in Worcestershire in the wake of her handling of the latter stages of the foot-and-mouth crisis - crossed the Channel on Monday.

Her aim was to give our farmers some much-needed publicity in the wake of the illegal six-year ban being lifted by the French authorities.

All was going well as she carved and sniffed some of the meat - declaring it delicious. But there was a problem - she steadfastly refused to eat any herself.

Mrs Beckett's officials had an excuse. She did not want to be remembered as doing a "John Gummer" - a reference to the Tory minister who infamously fed his young daughter a hamburger at the height of the mad cow crisis.

But David Liddington, the shadow agriculture secretary, was on it like a shot.

"It symbolises the fact that this Government will give farmers fine words but will not back them with deeds," he grumbled.