LET me make sure I've got this right.

The EU declares that British beef is safe at last from Mad Cow Disease, but the French take no notice and illegally ban it all the same on health grounds.

Then, in the ensuing row, it is revealed that French farmers have been feeding human and animal dung to the beasts and fowl they send to us as meat, not to mention banned drugs.

Yet we do not tell them where to shove their vile boeuf M- la merde.

Is this not incredible - that we are dumped on by the French and do not have the guts to do the same to them?

It is all very well our government sticking by the EU rules - just as Britain has always done in the past whenever our bolshie European partners, above all the perfidious French, have ignored the regulations to suit themselves and their anarchic farmers - but when is it going to stick up for the British people?

Letting foreigners supply us with muck-infested meat is the exact opposite of that.

And, as it happens, they are also in direct contravention of New Labour's avowed pledge to pursue policies that are in tune with public opinion.

So how many voters has Tony Blair counted who are in favour of eating dung-fed French beef or chicken?

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