As I have a spare minute, let me untwist your twisted thinking on the EU and abattoirs. First, those small abattoirs were indeed driven out of business but the EU commissioners were not to blame for that. The EU laid down regulations about inspection and hygiene that small outfits should have been able to but couldn't afford to take on board. Our own government could have helped those small businesses to up their game - isn't that what every bloody government we ever elect says it will do? - but, instead, they allowed them to go to the wall. So let me ask you - where would you rather your meat came from, a well-run slaughterhouse that abides by strict hygiene and inspection rules, or a back-street setup doing its own thing unobserved, letting blood into the drains? When I lived in Tipton in 1973 there was an abattoir in the middle of the town that had more rats than people strolling in and out of it from the main road outside. Jaysus!

Second, the 2001 outbreak started as a result of either illegal imports of infected meat or by feed producers failing to sterilise infected swill, or both. EU commissioners do not organise illegal importing or encourage the production of infected swill last time I looked.

Third, the reason that animal movements spread the disease was extremely slack government regulation, a total failure to learn lessons from previous outbreaks. Recommended good practice such as inspection and vaccination prior to transport was never adopted. The responsibility for that rested squarely with the government, yes, the one led by the man who you mistakenly think I admire despite my telling you a hundred times how much I detest the bastard. EU commissioners set out regulations to prevent disease and restrict its spread. Our own government had it totally within their power to make farmers and transport companies up their game towards standards that any sane person would recognise as appropriate. The way you talk you'd think that those slapdash, corner-cutting ways of old were perfectly hunkydory. They were not, and the EU was actually doing a damn sight more about it than our own governments.

I know how you love to blame the EU for all the ills of the world. I also think that setaside and other aspects of agricultural and fisheries policy are absurd. But, as ever, you allow your ideology to blind you to the specifics and you end up blaming the wrong people. We're the fifth best economy in the world I imagine you telling me. Well the fifth best economy in the world should be more than capable of organising animal inspection and movement according to strict and appropriate regulation in a way that prevents the uncontrolled spread of disease. That outbreak spread to several other countries in Europe but not one of them suffered like we did in spite of having to stick to the same rule book. Wonder why. .