Tory hypocrisy: The European Parliament has been trying to introduce a mandatory system of food labelling so that consumers can see clearly not only what the products contain but where it comes from. The idea was also put forward to have a kind of traffic light system in regard to healthy and not so healthy food, covering areas like salt contents, sugar and fats. At the moment those of us with failing eyesight can often be seen in the supermarket aisle desperately trying to fathom out the number of calories or the fat content of a product by either holding it out at arm’s length or conversely holding it right up to our faces trying to read the miniscule print on the label. Unfortunately the easy to see at a glance traffic light scheme was rejected along with a proposal to allow individual member states to adopt their own scheme. I and my Labour colleagues voted in favour but the British Tories voted against. So how bizarre is that. Anti European Tories voting against Britain doing its own thing but the scenario gets worse.

The NFU have campaigned tirelessly for the country of origin to be placed on all products so that you know if it’s British beef or Argentinean etc because they know that British farmers produce good quality food. Labour MEPs support the NFU in this and thankfully this part of the proposal was passed. But your Tory MEPs from the North West and your sole Lib/Dem voted against which has got the blood of the NFU boiling, I can tell you. They even opposed the inclusion of calories on food labels which flies in the face of what their own Government is saying.

The Coalition agreement between the “Chuckle Brothers” in the UK states “We will introduce honesty in food labelling so that consumer can be confident about where their food comes from”. Clearly they have failed to inform their MEPs in this regard leading to another bout of Tory/Lib Dem hypocrisy.

The Budget: I’m not going to say much on the issue of the new coalition Government’s budget except that it is vicious and will re-create in my mind the great North/South divide we experienced during the Thatcher years. For people to claim it is fair is bizarre to say the least. It’s not fair, it’s not equitable and it is very much a budget based on political dogma and one that hits normal people hard whilst going easy on the well off. We all know that borrowing had to be reduced. But the scale of the cuts and the size of the tax increases announced by the coalition take no account of people’s ability to pay and put at serious risk fragile economic recovery. These are grim times and under this Government it’s probably going to get grimmer. However, I’m sure you will all be reassured that whilst you pay your extra VAT, or find yourself redundant, the boys in the city who got us all in this mess in the first place, thought it was a good budget. Now doesn’t that tell us something?