EU behind barmy pub grub ban

Two recent stories in the Express & Star illustrate why it's worth delving behind the headlines.

The first is the fate of traditional cheese-and-onion cobs in our local pubs, which have fallen foul of new food standards. As usual, poor Dudley Council gets it in the neck for seeming to wage war on good old-fashioned pub grub.

Yet it's worth bearing in mind that the Food Hygiene (England) Regulations that in this instance the council is expected to enforce are themselves lifted lock-stock-and-barrel from Regulations (EU) 852/2004 and 853/2004, which the European Union is in turn expecting Her Majesty's Government to enforce.

Likewise, there is more than meets the eye to the story about Russells Hall Hospital having to cough up an extra £30 million to shore up its end of a project completed using the Private Finance Initiative. Indeed, why is a Labour government so eager to sign up to contracts that so richly line the pockets of big business while offering such poor value to the taxpayer?

One reason is that PFI deals provide an ideal mechanism for Gordon Brown to keep what is in reality public sector borrowing off the official register of government debt. It therefore enhances his reputation for prudence to those voters happy who accept this government's arithmetic at face value.

And yet might our Chancellor's use of such shameful accounting sleights also have something to do with the fact that if UK government borrowing exceeds 3 per cent of national income then not only does he receive a verbal kicking from the European Commission, but Britain can kiss goodbye to any hopes of ditching the pound and joining the Euro?

Of course, the powers-that-be who are engineering our absorption into this monolithic European superstate have every interest in keeping quiet about such back-door scheming. Therefore, they are only too happy for newspaper editors to blame "barmy" Dudley Council or "incompetent" hospital managers when in reality both the cheese cob and the Russells Hall PFI affair are part of a bigger picture of how democratic accountability in Britain is haemorrhaging away with each passing day.

With almost three-quarters of our laws now being similarly determined by the European Union, perhaps it's time for the British people to question again exactly what they voted for in the referendum of 1975.

Cllr Ray Burston, Hayley Green & Cradley South ward, Dudley MBC.