Bananas. And stuff.

We all know the EU is barmy. It has been barmy for a long time, and proved it conclusively when it introduced laws saying that bananas, carrots, celery, cucumbers and a whole variety of differing fruits and vegetables had to meet an exacting set of standards before they could go on sale.

After all, with all that evidence showing that crooked carrots, bendy bananas and crinkly cucumbers can give us all the foulest of diseases, the EU was acting to protect its citizens, surely?

What's that I hear you all cry? There is no evidence that misshapen vegetables are harmful? Then why would the EU introduce such measures? A common set of standards: sprouts must be a certain diameter or shoppers will get confused? I think not: I think its more to do with the desire to constantly exercise power.

Now, given that there has been a massive food shortage courtesy of turning our farmland over to the production of bio-fuels, and that fishermen already have to dump tons of perfectly good stock back into the sea to avoid strict EU fishing quota laws, perhaps allowing these mutant fruits onto our market might not be such a bad idea?

Well, the EU has partially come to terms with this logic. In an agreement reached on Wednesday, rules covering some fruits and vegetables are being relaxed, though not repealed entirely.

If, as our government would have us believe, this is still a sovereign nation, why do they not announce that they are repealing these rules themselves? Allow produce that doesn't meet exactingly stupid EU standards to be sold on markets: having more food available can never be a bad thing, surely?

Perhaps the reason they won't is that they are telling lies to the people, and that this is not now, and has not been for some time, a truly sovereign country.