TORY leader William Hague made a flying visit to the heart of the Forest of Dean on Tuesday to talk about the foot and mouth crisis and meet representatives of farming and tourism enterprises.
And Mr Hague allowed the Review a rare one-on-one interview which gave the opportunity to ask his views on how he would handle a number of pressing local topics outside the present crisis should he become Prime Minister in the forthcoming elections.
Accompanied by prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate Mark Harper, Mr Hague spent time with people like Josephine and Simon Felton, who run Littledean House Hotel and were able to tell him how their trade was being affected.
"I think we made a real point," said Mrs Felton, whose hotel faces uncertain times after a growing list of cancellations starting with the postponement of the Cheltenham Festival, a major Forest orienteering event and a poultry show at Blakeney.
And farmer Geoff Savage, who has a beef herd within a couple of miles of an outbreak, told him "the last four weeks have been the worst of our lives" living with anxiety from day to day.
Mr Hague sympathised with both predicaments and insisted "we have been leading with the government following" in recent weeks.
He pledged help for businesses through interest free loans which could be repaid when profitability returned, speeding up VAT repayments where appropriate, a change in tax payments being based on last year's profits, and an easing of the law on paying Jobseekers allowances to seasonal workers unable to find employment or laid off.
But the main thrust of Mr Hague's address was that people were finding it hard if not impossible to find out what was going on and who to turn to for advice.
"What we need is a central figure of authority in all these regions," he said.
Part of that meant immediately giving a higher profile to the army – in areas they were present the situation was already improving, he said.
Sheep and lambs dutifully came to the Forest edge to ponder the reason for the horde of cameramen and reporters – a scant half a mile from the point all Forest sheep are supposed to be already, awaiting slaughter.
Not a few were led to wonder if entering such a sensitive area was wise – the road beside Speech House is closed meaning a detour via Parkend and Cannop.