It’s been quite some time since my last posting while I considered what to say – or how to contain what I say - about the still ongoing horsemeat scandal.
It is an unmitigated outrage of course and totally appalling in its impact on ordinary people. And so is the way that the companies involved tried to play down their negligence and culpability by hiring PR consultants to use terms like ‘inconvenience’ and ‘labelling issues’ and how the profiteering outfits really had the personal interests of their customers at heart and that there were no ‘safety’ concerns - as if these were what preyed on people’s minds. We know that it is ‘safe’ to eat horses – or dogs and cats for that matter – but in this country we most definitely choose not to do so as the culpable, negligent and couldn’t-care-less companies involved know full well.
I read one article saying that ‘it beggars belief’ that this could have occurred after the BSE/CJD outrage. Well, no, it does not beggar belief. Those who think that it does still don’t understand the fundamental factors behind BSE/CJD – profiteering and pressurising, lack of moral values, contempt for the public, disrespect for nature and totally inadequate inspection and enforcement to name but five.
I seem to recall a government minister of that time forcing his child to eat a burger in front of the press – a clear case of paternal coercion that should have precipitated a bye-election. Did he know something we didn’t i.e. no beef in there anyway?
The reluctance of ministers of this wretched government to engage with, let alone take charge of the response to the horsemeat scandal is another disgrace. So desperately inconvenient to have to get back to Westminster! The ducking, weaving and buck-passing (‘a matter for the industry’) is contemptible especially following the government cuts to testing, their love of ‘light touch’ regulation for their friends and the neutering division of responsibilities for food safety.
What are ministers for? Who are governments for? And why do they think it’s OK to test on the basis of passing over up to 1% horse in a ready meal?
And what are today’s capitalists for – perhaps to enhance the well-being of ordinary people or just possibly line their own pockets? Let them sail away on their yachts to pirate waters fat on the bonuses from their job exporting, eviscerated, deregulated, lowly taxed and globalised corporations.
Hmmm. Just as well I didn’t let myself go in writing this piece!
