Britannist

News of David Cameron, the pro-EU Conservative and anti-UKIP Conservative leader, who says he wants to see "food patriotism". Is this the same David Cameron who - in his first action as Conservative leader last January - scrapped the Conservative pledge of his three predecessors to pull the UK out of the appalling EU Common Fisheries Policy if he won power? Critics will say he wants food patriotism - except for British fish and UK fishing waters which are being plundered by greedy industrial-sized boats from greedy and ungrateful continental EU nations.

From BBC 1 Ceefax, analogue page 110, 3.1.2007 at 3.43 am:

'Cameron urges British food labels'

Conservative leader David Cameron is to call for clearer labelling so consumers can buy genuinely British food.

Mr. Cameron will say under current rules shoppers can be wrongly led to believe that produce form abroad is British.

Speaking at the Oxford farming conference, he plans to talk about the rise of "food patriotism".

Meanwhile, Environment Secretary David Miliband is to call on farms to benefit from global warming by getting involved in growing crops for biofuels.

Britannist adds: What a daft party Miliband's Lie-bour rabble are. Prescott announced plans to dig up huge areas of green land for housing and now Miliband wants the land used for biocrop growth. They can't have it both ways. I wrote ages ago that we need as much farmland as possible for biocrop growth (as oil runs out). Prescott is wrong of course - all efforts must be made to stop his urbanisation plan for the south of England.

g hall

Well Boy Dave knows the answer Get out of Europe but he won't do it

Hartlepool

Bring back "Buy British".

That used to be the slogan years ago.

I dont know who brought it out though,may have been the CONS.

BASILDON BOY

I believe the Buy British campaign was under some past Labour Government - they wanted people to spend their way out of recession.

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Mike Nattrass MEP is HOT HOT HOT!!!

kernow

I think you'll find it was Margaret Thatcher, but I'm not 100% sure!

Peter King

Was it Herr Wislon who introduced the slogan 'I'm Backing Britain'?

arden forester

No, it was some typists from Surrey!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...9833_1,00.html

Anthony Butcher

The silly thing is that he doesn't state any reasons why people should buy British... he just assumes that patriotism will do. Well that doesn't cut it for most people.

Three are good reasons for buying British including animal welfare and environmental issues - issues that will appeal way beyond the limited call of patriotism.

And to convince restaurants, supermarkets etc to buy British on a large scale then he needs a plan to make it economically viable for them to do so.... which necessitates removing Britain from the CAP.

I think that it is great that he is taking an interest in this, but what a wasted opportunity. It is all talk and no substance.

arden forester

I'm old enough to remember George Brown berating some journalist because he (Brown) was driving a foreign car! "Well if I didn't buy this German car, why on earth do you think a German is going to want to buy a British car?" Not exactly commercially sound, but it made a point.

If we just buy British (a sort of BNP-lite!) then exporters are going to feel the pinch, because imports will be affected. Free trade is what we want. If people don't want to buy British that's their choice. It's all about freedom.

We had a farmer's market in Solihull. Didn't get the support! Why? Because the prices were high. However, the local greengrocers sell produce at HALF the price of Sainsbury's/Tesco/Morrisons, but people still buy from the supermarkets. I buy "reduced items" at 10p a go. I told the boy at Sainsbury's that if their barcoding was so date conscious I would take his offer of "reduced" even though the peppers in question looked as if they had just come off the plant! Why do we play their games? I don't. I buy what looks decent, not some clinically cleaned carrot that tastes of nothing!

There's nowt so queer as folk! :roll:

Bluemerle

Oh no, not food labelling again

What is it with David Cameron? Is he a kind of Rip van Winkle? Has he been asleep for years, if not decades?

Every time he comes up with a policy, those of us who have been paying attention sigh with weariness: been there, done that. The latest idea? Conservatives will ensure that food labelling will tell people that food is grown and produced in this country and locally.

Does the man not know that food labelling is an EU competence and has been for years? As we speak, a multi-annual plan for consolidating EU food labelling regulations is being rolled out. No Conservative or any other government can do anything about it. Most of it does not even go through Parliament, being EU Regulations rather than Directives.

Has the man forgotten or, come to think of it, did he ever know about the Little Red Tractor label that was supposed to signify “Assured Food Standards” but was slyly marketed by the NFU as an assurance that the food was British grown and British produced until told that it was illegal in the EU to discriminate in this way? The truth is that no food producer from any country whatsoever wanted to apply for the Little Red Tractor label and, after several relaunches, it died a peaceful death, rather like the tractor production industry in this country.

The Boy-King’s speech to the Oxford Farming Conference is full of shibboleths that were trendy a year or so ago and waffle. What it does not have is hard information. No amount of waffle about local production, the Slow Food Movement or the French not losing their link with food production (a debatable proposition) can hide the fact that the man either knows nothing or has chosen to ignore the following interesting facts: agriculture, food production (actually quite successful in this country), health and safety, labelling, environment, veterinary rules, are all EU competences.

There is no mention of the CAP, of the unrolling food labelling consolidation, of endless veterinary rules, of the meat hygiene directives, of the fact that according to the Treaty of Rome we are not allowed to discriminate against any other EU member state. I could go on but shall not. Read the whole speech and marvel at the man’s fatuity and ignorance even if “he was brought up in the country”.

Actually, given his much-boasted upbringing he ought to know that farmers in this country make up one per cent of the population (and around two per cent of rural population). A goodish number of them export their produce and are not likely to want to play protectionist games. And an even bigger number vote Labour, have always done so and will always do so. Why, therefore, should a man who does not think it worth his while to address the CBI, that is the wealth-producers of this country, go off to blather at this annual conference is anybody’s guess.

What a good thing I abandoned my resolution not to attack the Boy-King and his miserable party.

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/