Three out of ten for the reporter who unsuccessfully tried to induce George Osborne into saying whether he would eat a ready-meal spaghetti bolognese.Clearly the chap from Sky News had watched Erin Brockovich but what a pity that when the chancellor proclaimed "British food is the best in the world" the question wasn't put to him why it was therefore necessary for the environment minister to go trotting off to Brussels today.
The government and the Food Standards Agency are going to have to do better than seek out a scapegoat over horse meat. They dearly want to portray the issue as a serious but routine supply-chain scam which can be handled through swift decisive action, etc. Their problem is that it is now dawning on people that the naughty goings-on could not simply be restricted to isolated operations in Yorkshire and West Wales. Nor can the mislabelling be attributed to wicked foreigners. Well, not entirely anyway.
Regardless of the palaver about international criminality, the uncomfortable evidence for ministers past and present is that deregulation has made the food inspection regime in the UK as ineffective as border control or policing of the financial sector. The problems are systemic and there are enough environmental health bods out there to provide evidence to that effect.
It's time for the media to start putting the right questions to the right people.
Problem is if the authorities in France say an elephant is a cow, then it's a cow. It's called the internal market. Routine testing of products that have been tested elsewhere is just against the law.
ReplyDeletePro-Europeans just don't seem to get that the UK can't act unilaterally in this area.
I don't think that Anonymous 20.06 is quite right in this case. There is no impediment in testing for accuracy of labelling, regardless of whether food is EU sourced. The current scandal arose after testing in Ireland but re-testing in consumer countries is entirely valid either as routine or in special circumstances.
ReplyDeleteRef
http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/labellingnutrition/foodlabelling/index_en.htm
Just reading the story that EU is urging member states to test meat DNA. Was Anonymous telling porkies?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-21453370
Not telling porkies or even horsies
ReplyDeleteRandom checks may be carried out on animal products at the final destination, routine checks no:
http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/animalproducts/index_en.htm
You should also read up on the FSA, it is independent, it doesn't take its orders from ministers and does not require ministerial permission for any of its actions. It negotiates and agrees European legislation on behalf of the UK , again without any approval from ministers being required
# What a fool believes
Delete# He sees
# No wise man has the power
# To reason away
- Doobie Brothers.
"negotiates and agrees European legislation...." LOL
Anonymous quote: "It [the FSA] negotiates and agrees European legislation on behalf of the UK , again without any approval from ministers being required."
ReplyDeletePlease provide proof. Richard Littlejohn clips and UKIP twaddle are void.