The opinions expressed by John Blunt are not necessarily those of this newspaper

FISH 'n' chips used to be the great British takeaway that fed millions of families for a few coppers.

Not any more it isn't.

The way prices are set to rocket, now that Brussels has once again put horrendous limits on what our fisherman can catch in our own seas, four slices of battered cod and four lots of what used to be six penn'orth of chips could leave a family with little change out of a £20 note.

But all this is supposed to be in the name of conserving dwindling fish stocks in the North Sea and the Irish Sea.

Both are deemed to be seriously over-fished, although the number of large UK trawlers in Britain's already-decimated fishing industry has been slashed in the past 25 years by three-quarters to 2,500.

"The fish are not there," sighs Fisheries Minister Elliot Morley, resignedly accepting the EU edict.

Where have they all gone, when British waters once contained four-fifths of Europe's fish stocks?

The answer, of course, is that in joining the EU, in the supposed belief that Britain would benefit, Euro-fanatic Ted Heath allowed the Europeans to come and take our fish from our waters.

Afterwards we saw the subsidised foreign fleets - from Spain in particular - register their vessels here and start snapping up British fishing quotas and even more of our fish and export their catches back home.

But we Brits are "good Europeans," complying all the time with what Brussels says.

And look where it gets us on fish.

Our trawlermen are facing ruin and fish 'n' chips is on the way to being a dish only the toffs can afford.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.