But it was a famous victory

A quick diversion from serious matters and a reminder about the ridiculous olive oil controversy that, as every school child will know in weeks and months to come, ended with victory for Common Sense, an army led by the British negotiators (or something). Apparently not.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch asked the following Written Question:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how United Kingdom representatives voted in the European Union Commission and COREPER on the Commission's proposal to ban the selling of olive oil in restaurants except in sealed non-refillable containers.

Ought to be an easy one: we voted against it and with our gallant allies defeated the dark monster. Errm, no. Lord De Mauley on behalf of HMG read out the reply his officials wrote for him:

During negotiations on an amendment to EU marketing standards for olive oil (Commission Regulation no. 29/2012) the Government consistently opposed a new EU requirement for bottles containing olive oil in the catering sector to be non-refillable and non-resealable from 1 January 2014. However, this only formed one element of the proposals which also included improved labelling provisions for consumers and the UK, therefore, abstained in the final vote. Given the support for the proposal from olive oil producing Member States, a vote against the proposal would have had no impact on the outcome.

Subsequent to the vote, common sense prevailed; the EU Agriculture Commissioner announced on 23 May that the proposal would be withdrawn and that he would consult further on the issue before deciding next steps. We await the outcome of those consultations.

It seems that the massed forces of Common Sense were led by someone else as the British negotiators abstained in the vote as it would have had no impact, given the support from olive oil producing countries. Yet, something must have had an impact and it was not British negotiating technique.

Nothing on the horse meat scandal?

Attentive readers would have noticed that I have not posted anything on the all-engrossing horse-meat scandal. The reason is very clear: the Boss on EU Referendum has been covering the subject in great detail and there is absolutely nothing I can add to it. As a friend who lives and works in America said on another thread: EUReferendum is the go-to site for anyone who wants to understand what is going on.

However, I should like to call attention to one important posting, entitled, slightly misleadingly EU politics: the silence of the media. The media, on the Boss's own showing has not been silent exactly, more completely and utterly wrong.

Astonishingly enough, this posting shows that at least one journalist, Charles Moore, seems to have woken up to the importance of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002, one I recall well from my days of working as the Director of the Honest Food campaign in the Countryside Alliance. (Alas, the campaign no longer exists.)

However, I do want to pick up another point in the posting. The Boss, rightly, considers that all other arguments about the FSA and politicians but, I think, does not pay enough attention to the big issue of a large proportion of the British public's insistence on cheap food.

I am not sure I can understand this obsession entirely, since it does not come from poverty of which there is very little in this country. Rather, there is a widespread feeling, which has existed for a couple of centuries as one realizes reading cookery books of the period, that food should take up a very small proportion of one's income.

Admittedly, a society in which a very large proportion of people's income goes on basic food is a poor society; but many rich societies spend relatively more on food than, by and large, do the British and even so there is a desire for yet cheaper food, presumably because a bigger proportion should be left on drink, holidays and computer games.

This obsession affects eurosceptic attitudes. The Boss fires off a few more rockets towards UKIP whose appearance in the horse meat scandal has been non-existent, despite the obvious EU connection. Instead, they and other eurosceptics concentrate on the one link between food production and the EU they can grasp, the CAP, and the argument (when it does not concentrate on rich farmers, especially the Prince of Wales, getting subsidies) remains monotonously the same: we must get out of the CAP in order to pay less for our food. As a matter of fact, we pay less than most countries, as a proportion of our income. How much less do these people want to pay and what kind of food do they think they will have?

Oh, and should they not have a look at Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 instead of bleating about cheap food?

Actually we need fewer MPs

How often do we hear the cry that MPs represent constituencies that are too large, that we need more MPs, that representative government cannot survive in existing circumstances? I suggest that all those who ever utter nonsense of this kind have a look at the latest brouhaha around the proposal made by Andy Burnham, Shadow Health Secretary, that sugary breakfast cereals should either be banned or severely controlled by the state.

Apparently, he "has started garnering public and expert opinion on the subject as part of a consultation on tackling obesity". No doubt, he has, at our expense. Somebody has to pay all those experts to promulgate more state control.

His proposals are intended to prevent more obesity in children. Of course, they are. Everything these people do or propose to do is for the children, as if that made it all right to introduce state control over matters that is none of the politicians' business. Let us not even speculate who would be the people who would do well out of production of breakfast cereals that have passed some enormous quango's imprimatur. Corrupt? Our politicians and regulators? I am shocked, shocked that anyone could even suggest such a thing.

Obesity in children becomes an issue roughly speaking four times a year. The rest of the time we worry about eating disorders in children. The best solution would be to leave children to their devices (controlled by parents for the most part), encourage them to move about a good deal more and stop inducing neuroses in them about food. Eat less, move more is usually the best answer to obesity, assuming we can define it, which is not usually the case.

Having seen a number of MPs in my working life I have to report that a good many of them look unfit, have beer bellies and are often fat to the point of obesity. As with financial matters so with this: I see no reason why we should be lectured by these bozos (I use the word advisedly) on the subject.

Of course, we know what this is all about. Yes, it is our old friend, displacement activity. One way or another our MPs have given up any legislative power they might have to the EU, to quangos (and the two are often closely united) and, in the case of the unions, to the public sector unions who would like to paralyze all attempts to reform healthcare in this country. No real legislation is possible and they are mostly too scared to hold the Executive to account. So they come up with this nonsense. I say we need far fewer MPs. Halve the numbers at the very least.

The EHOs are back

Actually, they never went away but for some time little was heard about Environmental Health Officers in my neck of the woods. Now they are back in Westminster, whose Council seems absolutely determined to destroy the flourishing economy around retail, catering and entertainment. There are other things in the City of Westminster as well and why the Council has not tried to drive all the business out is incomprehensible. Perhaps, they will get round to it in 2013. (It is, incidentally, a Conservative led Council.)

Their latest wheeze is to ban the cooking and serving or rare hamburgers by restaurants and bars. No, I do not mean these are burgers that are hard to find or come from some rare kind of meat. It is the way they are cooked and the way many people, including me, like them. I also like steak tartare, which is probably next on the list of the Westminster EHOs, followed by rare or medium-rare steaks.

In today's Evening Standard the Council and its minions are defending themselves by saying that they have not banned rare hamburgers, merely made it clear that this was not something they approved of. Restaurant owners and managers know what that means: very soon the inspectors will be coming round and demanding that such things be taken off the menu. So, naturally and somewhat pusillanimously, a number of them have started taking those bloody (in the Shakespearian sense) burgers off the menu.

Inevitably, they are quoting a distinguished microbiologist, Professor Hugh Pennington:

James Armitage, Westminster city council’s food health and safety manager, said: “This is not about banning under-cooked burgers. This is about making sure customers are eating meat that is not a threat to their health. It is possible to produce burgers that can be eaten under-cooked but strict controls are necessary for this.

“We have enlisted the UK’s top expert on E.coli, Professor Hugh Pennington, to get this matter resolved and he has outlined that rare minced meat which is not correctly cooked and prepared can kill — we have to take that seriously and we believe the restaurant involved falls well below the standards required.”

I am not sure Professor Pennington likes the idea of being "enlisted" by some pipsqueak food health and safety manager but what he says is absolutely true: anything that is nor correctly cooked and prepared can kill. Come to think of it, things that are correctly prepared and cooked can kill. That is hardly the point. What is notable in this skirmish is that there is no reference of a single case of anybody becoming ill, let alone dying as a result of eating under-cooked hamburgers.

This is, in other words, our old friend, the precautionary principle, which says that all sorts of rules and regulations have to be imposed on businesses because it is within the bounds of possibility that something they do might harm somebody some time.

One chain of wine bars is fighting back.

It comes after council inspectors ordered Davy’s wine bar in St James’s to stop serving its £13.95 burgers underdone. The wine bar has challenged the authority’s decision at Westminster magistrates court in what is being seen as a test case when it resumes.

Looks like we shall have to support Davy's in their fight against the EHOs.

Time to start worrying about the London - Brighton run

Rather than try to work out all the details, known and unknown, of the growing Petraeus scandal, this blog will turn to matters nearer home. (No, not the BBC's travails though I have no sympathy whatsoever with broadcasters who appear to have no understanding of the concept of law.)

Lord Willoughby de Broke put down the following Written Question in the House of Lords;

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the proposals by the European Commission to harmonise European Union roadworthiness regulations; and what effect these proposals will have on the ownership of classic and vintage cars in the United Kingdom.

Earl Attlee, replying on behalf of HMG, as ever produced a mealy-mouthed explanation (as if Ministers could ever do otherwise).

An initial assessment has been made on the proposal which suggests potential significant costs to the UK. At the recent Transport Council the Government intervened and expressed serious concerns about the proposal, which will remove the requirement to have an annual roadworthiness test for vehicles over 30 years old and of historic interest, while limiting allowable modifications. The Government will continue to challenge those provisions that imply unmerited costs.

What, may one ask, are unmerited costs and, more importantly, is the London - Brighton Veteran Car Run safe from the regulators who, undoubtedly, have our best interests at heart?

Why hasn't the problem been solved yet?

Tesco has agreed to have "traffic light" labelling on its food, informing idiots their customers which foods are healthier or have less salt or more of whatever happens to be the fashionably good or bad ingredient. I seem to recall this being tried in other stores in the past and then quietly dropped as being too expensive and of no use whatsoever. Apparently, my memory is slightly at fault.

The retailer has for years resisted using the colour-coded system on its products. The on-the-packet traffic light label grades food as red, amber or green depending on how nutritious it is, with red being the most unhealthy.

Instead, Tesco has since 2005 used a ‘guideline daily amounts’ (GDA) system which shows the percentage of salt, sugar and fat in a product but does not involve colours.

However the chain, which has annual sales of £47 billion in the UK, said that following new customer research it will now develop a “hybrid” labeling system incorporating traffic lights and GDA.

The move will bring it in line with rivals Sainsbury’s, Asda and Marks & Spencer who have used hybrid labeling for years.

(Incidentally, why is the Telegraph using American spelling?)

Naturally all the so-called charities, lobbying organizations and quangos who deal with health, diet, obesity and other related matters rushed in there joyfully, acclaiming this latest move against something that does not seem to go away.

Given the number of these organizations and the extent to which food manufacturers and retailers have been bullied into providing perfectly pointless information (knowing how much salt there is in something is one thing, being told how much is red, amber or green is something else) surely by now we should have no disorders, syndromes or illnesses caused by the "wrong" kind of food, let alone obesity.