Food for thoughtlessness

Although many will accept that Britain is a progressive, 21st-century nation, the sad reality is that we have barely moved on since the Middle Ages, writes Rural Affairs Editor Nathan Rous.

Take the drowning of witches: if you floated and survived your ordeal the reward was a medieval spray tan - standing on top of a flaming log pile and waiting until your skin went crispy.

If you drowned it was accepted you weren't a witch, although admittedly it was little comfort for your bloated corpse.

Move forward 600 years and the same 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' attitude resonates throughout the land.

Take the credit crisis. Credit-card companies are ditching the bad payers and also ditching those who pay in full every month because they are worried about the former doing a runner and the latter not making them any money.

Watching this country's slide into recession is a painful one, epitomised by the pictures last weekend of Alistair Darling scraping feverishly away at a Lottery scratchcard. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer needs to rely on Lady Luck then what chance the rest of us?

Slowly but surely the signs suggest we're returning to the days of boom and bust, yet with all the homecoming glory of Ricky and Bianca.

The implications for first-time buyers are even more acute: although houses may be getting cheaper the chances are the mortgage companies won't lend them any money; if they do it will be at a rate which once again makes the entire process unaffordable.

Given that youngsters in Shropshire already have little or no chance of buying in the county in which they have been brought up, the problems will only be exacerbated.

It's times like this when we need the Government to back British business to the hilt, to ensure that every avenue remains open to protect our economy.

Why then Gordon Brown decided to pull the plug on Food For Britain (FFB) is anyone's guess.

In case you didn't know, FFB is responsible for boosting the profile of Britain's food producers abroad: a marketing initiative which helped Tyrrells Crisps, the Leominster snack company, crack the French market with its parsnip chips, even though the French traditionally see parsnips as food for pigs.

Lady Sylvia Jay, the chairman of FFB, expressed her disappointment at the withdrawal of funding - just under £5 million a year. She said Defra had initially decided to stop funding in 2011, but an internal decision was "reluctantly" taken to wind up the organisation at the end of March 2009.

It's a crushing blow to our rural entrepreneurs, many of whom started life in their own kitchens and have little or no support, despite providing much-needed jobs and vital revenue.

What makes it worse is that while our Government is meekly abdicating its responsibility, the French Government is busy ensuring its world famous steak 'ta-ta' has no obstacles in its way regardless of the appalling impact on Britain's butchers and restaurants.

Dear old Gordon has had plenty of advice when it comes to an image makeover, but perhaps he should be less like Ricky and more like Bianca if we are to avoid the slide into recession.