Bird flu won't be like foot-and-mouth. You can rest assured there won't be a shambles masquerading as a disaster this time. The Government is ready to meet the emergency. We know this to be true, because the Government has told us so. And if you believe that, you'll believe that Wembley will be ready for the Cup final.

I've been reading some letters in the newspapers from members of the public who found dead birds and so, conscious of their civic responsibilities, tried to report these incidents as the Government has commanded us.

They didn't have much luck. I quote: "You phone the RSPCA and after much button-pressing get through to a nice girl at a call centre who has no idea of the area you are describing and doesn't know how to take a map reference."

Another citizen trying, unsuccessfully, to be dutiful says: "They gave me the number of the Defra hotline, but the office was closed. They say that a duty officer will take your call if it's an emergency. No-one answers and after 15 minutes you give up."

Again: "When I tried the Veterinary Laboratories Agency they gave me a number to ring which returned me to the person I had been speaking to in the first place! The operator said there was no-one on hand to do anything at the moment. I expect the dead bird is still lying where it fell."

I hope you are reassured by this state of advanced readiness. Imagine, if the powers that be are so completely flummoxed by the sighting of a few dead birds, how they will react to hundreds of thousands of human beings going down with the dreaded disease. But we have seen it all before and we should expect nothing better. It will be a gigantic cock-up of the sort which is the trademark of this Government. Everything they touch turns to dross.

Remember the Dome? Wembley? Cutting crime? Housing policy? 'Joined up' transport policy in the hands of the fatuous Mr Prescott? Everything they do is 'presentation'. All is appearance and no reality. Lies, spin and make-believe.

Every national institution and public service in this country is a shambles. Nothing works even half as it should. How about the Post Office where millions of letters and parcels go missing - many stolen - every week? My doctor took me on one side at a drinks reception last week and said: "Let me give you some advice, don't fall ill. And if you do fall ill, don't whatever you do go into hospital".

Take the schools. The Government's own figures say that more than 40 per cent of the pupils leave school unable to read, write or count competently. And university maths and physics departments say they are having to provide crash courses for students who have been awarded A grades in their qualifying exams but they just aren't up to university standard.

Yet we all pay more than ever in taxes for this sham and fraud. Nothing works. They appoint millions of new bureaucrats to keep precise figures about how nothing is working. Trouble is, even when you want to speak to a bureaucrat you only get an answering machine.

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.