Poor relief for millionaires

Win, Win, Win.
How could we have got on the wrong side of a great reform ?

After decades of belly aching about the waste of the Common Agriculture Policy, the British Government is opposing the EU's plan cut in poor relief to billion/millionaires. Paraded as essential help to poor farmers, the Single Payments scheme pours out £billions to extremely rich farmers. Bravely the EU plans to cut the maximum handouts and spend the money saved on green anti-global warming policies. What could be better?

The Queen received just over £465,000. The reform would cut that  by around £140,000. The Prince of Wales received more than £100,000 and that would be cut by just over £3,000. One British agribusiness gets three and a half billion.

In France 25% of the cash goes to the %5 of the country's  richest farmers. In the UK 80 per cent of the public funds for farming find their way to just 20 per cent of farmers.

This is a dream policy Gordon-win, win and win again What the hell are we doing opposing It?

Two Interesting Days.

Part Two

My grip on reality was getting firmer when I was transferred from the wheelchair to a hospital trolley. The atmosphere in the Accident and Emergency unit at St Thomas's was a nauseous mix of intense dedicated frantic activity with a palpable air of danger and menace. There were  no cubicles immediately available and I waited for about ten minutes.

Another patient asked one of the paramedics who brought me in to get her a nurse. 'I have told them, he said. But the're busy. " "They are always busy " the lady said ungraciously oblivious of the strain the staff were under with the impossible demands made on them. An intensive care cubicle was free. It was speedily cleaned and I was wired up to half a dozen bleeping and throbbing machines.

A young doctor called and thoroughly checked the damage that the stroke had done to my body and brain. He told me the protocol was to keep in this cubicle for three hours and then overnight on the ward for observation.  That was comforting.

Pandemonium continued outside. A noisy patient in the cubicle next door was shouting and screaming. The tone changed to a threatening one. It was  wordless, loud and disturbing and totally incomprehens. ible A posse of half a dozen police arrived and persuaded the man to leave the unit.

A soft voiced nurse from Wicklow named Lenna was my Guardian angle. I quoted some verses from my childhood about the vale of Avoca.

'There is not in this wide world a Valley so sweet as the vale in whose bosom the sweet waters meet."

It meant nothing to her but a lot to me - my memory had not been wiped out. Lenna was a calm. chatty and comforting presence is the midst of the swirling bedlam. The staff of  this  A&E unit are heroic , quietly and efficiently coping with multiple crises that threatened to descend at any moment into chaos.  Is life for the staff here a hellish strain?

Half way through my three hours, colleagues Lyn Brown, Nia Griffiths  and Huw Irranca Davies visited. They had just finished their meal in the Dinning Room when I dropped to the floor. At least I had not put them off their food. Their company was as bracing a glass of champagne, humorous, optimistic and comradely.  It was a welcome intrusion of pleasant normality into the Hieronymus Bosch world into which I had been plunged.

Lyn is the successor MP in West Ham to my greatly loved friend Tony Banks. He also had a stroke. A merciless one. Time to count my blessings.

Fatal consequences

One of the best all round good-guys MPs did me a great favour yesterday.

David Taylor MP for North West Leicestershire is a Commons' treasure. He was recognised last year for his astute, literate courageous questioning of ministers. His oral questions are the best crafted of any current parliamentarian. Aware of my absence he urged MPs to sign the 14 EDMs I tabled  listing the names of the war dead of Iraq and Afghanistan.

He also pushed the great Daily Mirror campaign to Honour the Brave.

It clearly worked. On Tuesday 8 MPs had signed, Today it's 24. Additional signatures ensures that list is printed each day in order that MPs are reminded of the consequences of our decisions.