What is Good For Redwood, Is Good For Carswell

“Perhaps you may like to publicly comment on the last paragraph of:

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/history-repeating-itself.html

It would be helpful, for those of us who look to you as a ‘Saviour’ of our country, to know where you stand and whether your ‘beliefs’ are that strongly held?“

On the basis that – having met Douglas Carswell and believing he is an ‘Honourable’ member of the House of Commons – I know I will receive an honest response.

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-is-good-for-redwood-is-good-for.html

30th October 1991

“Addressing the Commons just a month before she was ousted as Tory leader, Baroness Thatcher said: ‘Monsieur Delors said at a press conference the other day that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the Community, he wanted the Commission to be the Executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate.

‘No! No! No!’“

Far be it for me to hasten, or wish to hasten, the demise of Maggie, however all I can ask is that, when it happens, could she make sure that she re-incarnates FDQ!

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/30th-october-1990.html

And They Both Wear Blue? WTF

Just a thought……………..

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/and-they-both-wear-blue-wtf.html

Inecobank EBRD sign €17 million loan pactThe European Bank for Reconstruction and Development EBRD and Inecobank a long standing partner bank in Armenia recently inked a €17 million agreement in Yerevan.The agreement was signed by EBRD Principal Banker Yelena Tonno and Executive Director of Inecobank Avetis Baloyan reads a press release.The EBRD loan in two facilities…http://www.neurope.eu/articles/103614.php

Priority in Albania UN Programme 2012-2016 is ITZineb Benjelloun-Touimi was recently appointed as Resident Coordinator and United Nations Resident Representative Development Programme United Nations in Albania AENews reported. Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha welcomed her to Albania and also congratulated on her new appointment.Berisha is confident that cooperation with the office of the UN will continue in…http://www.neurope.eu/articles/103584.php

History Repeating Itself?

“The Boston Tea Partiers, just like their successors today, were rising against “their own professional political class”, above all the luckless Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson. They were doing so in the name of a series of liberties which they believed their ancestors had secured for all Englishmen: liberties which stretched back through the Bill of Rights, back even through the Great Charter, to the inherited folkright of Anglo-Saxon common law.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s time to repatriate our revolution.“

So, Hannan, what about it? What are you waiting for? Is it not time that the likes of you, Carswell – and those other Conservative MPs who have signed up to Direct Democracy – decided to publicly repudiate the party whose rosettes you wear and with whom you are so obviously in disagreement – and put your ‘principles’, in the form of a new party, to the public vote at the next general election?

Question: Man or mouse, Hannan? Answer: Squeak?

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/history-repeating-itself.html

Bona Omi BertIts finally happened; Bert has come out of the closet. Yes thats Bert as in Sesame Street Bert nbsp; the exasperated grumpy mono-browed yellow half of Ernie and Bert the Streetrsquo;s favourite citrus-coloured co-habiting striped jumper-wearing bed-sharing buddies. For years the subject of much speculation Bert himself has finally laid…http://www.neurope.eu/articles/103497.php

Afghan media growing in difficult conditionsThere are about 50 television stations broadcasting in Afghanistan. Likewise there are around 100 radio stations and an abundance of newspapers and magazines; it is a country not starved of media. To outsiders Afghanistan as seen heard or read in the news media is all about conflict reports of dead…http://www.neurope.eu/articles/103494.php

European External Action Service

As I am sure the EU really does believe in ‘value for money’, perhaps we should ask al-Queda, or the IRA, to ‘test’ that our money is being well spent, with of course Ashton and her staff acting the part for which they are so well qualified – that of the dummies!

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/european-external-action-service.html

Closer Military Relations With France

“Too often the debate on defence within Europe has been focused on what the EU should or should not do. Yet it has always been my view that defence must be a sovereign, and therefore an inter-governmental issue. When nations can benefit from co-operation without losing sovereignty, they should aim to do so – which is why this week will mark the beginning of a long-term commitment to closer defence and security links with France. There are many reasons why this co-operation makes sense. We are Europe’s only nuclear powers. We have the largest defence budgets and are the only two countries with real, large-scale expeditionary capability. We are both permanent members of the UN Security Council, and leading members of the G8 and G20. And there is no better time to deepen our relationship with France.“

“This is not, I must point out, a repeat of Tony BLair’s trip to St, Malo, where he called for deeper military co-operation through the EU. Nor is it a push for an EU army, which we oppose.“

“I want to make it very clear that, if required, we maintain an autonomous capability to sustain a considerable and very capable military force in the field on an enduring basis.“

“Cuts announced by David Cameron in the Defence Review this month will lead to the axing of our Harrier jump jets and the decommissioning of the Ark Royal carrier. That means that no British planes will be available to fly from our sole aircraft carrier, Illustrious, in 2012.“

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/closer-military-relations-with-france.html

Gerald Warner

“REJOICE! Rejoice! It is Dave’s South Georgia moment. The greatest prime minister since Gordon Brown has won a stupendous victory over the European Union – in his own words, a “significant prize” – by restricting the increase in the EU budget to a paltry 2.9 per cent. Makes you proud to be British. Gawd bless yer, Mr Cameron, you’re a toff! They don’t like it up ‘em… This latest British “victory” bears some uncomfortable resemblance to such historic triumphs as the Charge of the Light Brigade and the three previous Afghan Wars.“

“Six months into his premiership, the EU wide boys have already taken the measure of Dave as a hollow man, full of wind and what’s-it. It is a pity a larger proportion of the British electorate did not share that insight.“

“Last week Dave described himself as a Eurosceptic. With Eurosceptics like that, who needs Ken Clarke?“

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/gerald-warner.html

News Manipulation

“We have to do more to cut out the cancer of al-Qaeda in Yemen and the Saudi peninsula.“

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/news-manipulation.html

So The Reason Is?

“It really isn’t a big plot. It is simply a dialogue about policies and ideas.“

The idea would seem to be no more than another ploy by Cameron to move his supposedly ‘centre-right-eurosceptic party’ even further to being a ‘centre-left-europhile party’!

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/so-reason-is.html

Conservative Party Or Cameroon Party MP?

“The UK government was unable to get cuts in the large and growing EU budget, or even to achieve a standstill, because it has to proceed by majority voting. The government  can dig in and insist on a falling budget for 2014-20, as they have a veto over that. They can also dig in over the proposed new Treaty. If the EU wants to Uk to sign it, the Uk should demand some powers back from the many areas where Conservatives opposed Labour’s past surrenders of authority.“

“the Uk should demand some powers back”

Pray who decides, Mr. Redwood, just what powers we should demand the return of and how are these ranked in order?
All powers ceded should be demanded back! You took the oath of a Privy Councillor and in so doing swore that no foreigner “should rule in this land”.
Left to Parliament, again? No thank you as it has been by leaving it to Parliament that most of this country’s woes can be traced back to.
The question has to be asked – and I mean no offence in so doing – did Wokingham elect a Conservative Party candidate or a Cameroon Party Candidate?“

“A certain look of contempt, and Mrs EP replied “I don’t mean that sort of ‘real’. I mean a real man who will do his very best never to be beaten by a woman. One who would want to show a woman who had previously done the same job that he could do it far better and get better results. But he isn’t even trying; all he wants to do is to be liked – real men would prefer to be feared.“

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/conservative-party-or-cameroon-party-mp.html

The European Medicines Agency has published the report on the second work package of its benefit-risk methodology project.
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So Just What Use Are Our MPs?

“The only people in a position to reform this system fundamentally are those who set it up in the first place under the 1989 Children Act – the politicians. But they have, with one or two shining exceptions – notably John Hemming – walked away from the Frankenstein’s monster that Parliament created. It is now up to them to support Mr Hemming and all those horribly maltreated families who are campaigning for one of the most out­rageous scandals in Britain today to be brought to an end.“

Again, just asking……………

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/so-just-what-use-are-our-mps.html

Might This Be More ‘Nudge’ – To Quote Ian Parker-Joseph?

OK, so I am a cynic – so what?

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/might-this-be-more-nudge-to-quote-ian.html

We’re Sheep Shuffling Towards A Permanently Yellow Britain

“David Cameron does not want to be a Conservative Prime Minister. The idea fills him with disgust. He much prefers a Coalition with the ultra-Leftist, anti-British Liberal Party.

Why? Because he is much more like them than he is like the silly sheep who voted Tory in the deluded hope of getting a patriotic, respon­sible and just government

I warned everyone against Mr Cameron when there was still time to stop him. And he repeatedly helped me by confirming that what I said was true.

Two of a kind: Is Cameron, left, more like the Clegg’s Lib Dems than he realises

He made it plain, when he shamelessly broke his pledge on an EU referendum, that he was not to be trusted on the Brussels issue – as we now see.

He refused to reply when I asked him, during the Election, if he was closer to Nick Clegg or Norman Tebbit. He gave his answer days later, after the sheep had voted, as he formed a Coalition with Mr Clegg.

But conventional wisdom – which is always wrong – has since then claimed that Mr Clegg is in some way the prisoner of the wicked Tories. He is portrayed as Mr Cameron’s fag at school, or as his helpless underling, by politically illiterate cartoonists.

On the contrary, Mr Cameron is the willing prisoner of Mr Clegg. He loves to have a permanent excuse to tell the shivering, lonesome clumps of real conservatives in his party that he cannot do what they want him to do.

In fact, he loves it so much that he really wants a merger between the two parties – in all but name. Hence the most fascinating – and so the least discussed – political revelation of the week.

My colleague Simon Walters reported last Sunday that Francis Maude, one of Mr Cameron’s closest and most astute lieutenants, had told a private gath­ering that the Coalition is a ‘bloody good thing’, adding that there was very little difference between the Tory and Liberal parties and that many Tories want the pact to continue far beyond five years. ‘Even if the Conservatives win a majority at the next Election, there will be a desire to continue with the Coalition among parts of the Conser­vative Party,’ he said.

Those parts will be the ones concentrated in the smart area of West London where Mr ­Cameron and his allies dwell. They are Liberals. They will govern as Liberals. Vote Blue. Get Yellow. If that isn’t what you want, stop giving them support, time, money and votes.“

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/were-sheep-shuffling-towards.html

And This From A Welsh Conservative

“David Cameron probably got the best deal there was (No way I can know that – and neither can anyone else) and he secured a lot of agreement on some fairly sceptical rhetoric. Let my fellow Conservatives turn their fire on the Labour Party, which reneged on its promise to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, and now stand on the touchlines, doing policy somersaults, watching people who should know better making some damn stupid comments.”

I wonder whether he will be the first Conservative that will honour a deal?

Update: It seems he is not a ‘betting man’.

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/and-this-from-welsh-conservative.html

How We Are ‘Duped’ By ‘Fake Charities’

“The subject is ‘Bad science in a good cause is just bad science’ and Professor John Davies, Director of the Centre of Applied Pyschology, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, explains his reasons for this statement.

For those who are interested in hearing the words of an eminent academic berating the brainwashing ‘charities’ – using the anti-smoking government funded organisations as his example – this is 4 minutes well spent.“

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-we-are-duped-by-fake-charities.html

Cost Of The EU

“The cost of Regulations and Red Tape – and this is from the EU’s own statistics – is greater than the value of the trade it is meant to regulate“

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/cost-of-eu.html

Ginger Rodents

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/ginger-rodents.html

Politics Home Drops ‘Another One’?

“Osborne faces child benefit Qs. The Treasury select committee will question chancellor George Osborne and chief secretary to the Treasury David Laws over proposed changes to child benefit because of fears they are unworkable. Prime minister David Cameron yesterday said he does not “predict a problem“.

Just saying……………………

Update: Not bad, it only took half an hour to correct!

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/politics-home-drops-another-one.html

"After the disappointment of Copenhagen, a multilateral agreement was urgently needed for the sake of the environment worldwide. In this sense, the agreement that we have reached today at the Biodiversity Summit in Nagoya has come in the nick of time", says Joke Schauvliege, Flemish Minister for Environment, Nature and Culture.

Media: 

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Day two began with an array of speakers and presentations that addressed major aspects of innovation policy and also the three central themes of the conference: unlocking creative potential, greening industries and supporting innovative entrepreneurship.

Media: 

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More than 300 labour market specialists from all over Europe came together for a two-day congress in Antwerp on October 28 & 29. They searched for ways to move forward in active labour market policies (ALMPSs) in order to strengthen the new European Employment Strategy within the framework of the EU 2020 Strategy.

Media: 

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Support from CEPOL’s e-Net for the Bulgarian Schengen learning programme went live during October. Based on the traditional training sessions carried out in Bulgaria, the first Schengen evaluation in an online learning environment was implemented. With the Bulgarian Schengen online learning programme, over 2,000 Bulgarian police officers have the possibility to access key information on 12 selected topics, including Border Control, Police Cooperation, Visa, Illegal Immigration, Trafficking of Human Beings, SIRENE and the Schengen Information System (SIS).

Each topic is divided into sections of self assessment, video-based topic presentations, practical cases and in-depth topic elaborations. Additionally forums have been set-up where users are able to contact a pool of content experts about specific questions on the various topics covered by the programme.

In addition to the Bulgarian experts involved in the forums, there are also members involved from the CEPOL’s SIRENE Operators Community of Practice who will look at the questions from an international and EU good practice perspective.

CEPOL’s support to the Bulgarian Schengen online learning programme focuses on structuring the content in a logical learning environment in which all users, both learners and facilitators, will find possibilities to contribute to the common body of knowledge presented in the programme.

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Good Timin’?

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/good-timin.html

Active labour market programmes – such as job matching, labour market training, employment subsidies – have had a limited impact on public job creation in all EU Member States
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Patriotism

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/patriotism.html

And Therein Lies The UK’s Problem…….

“But when will this crowd of people, the Carswells the Hannans, the Cranmers finally realise that they will not get the freedom, the liberty, the self governance they so often talk about and so plainly believe in will never come through the party whose Rosettes they wear.“

Cameron may well believe he is a ‘Major’ player in the politics of the EU (think Maastricht) but it is plain to see that his is but the ‘Office Manager’ for the region known as the UK!

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/and-therein-lies-uks-problem.html

More EU Lunacy Regarding FlyingBack in August I posted about the problems of those who hold Private Pilot Licences (PPLs) and today one of my readers emails me with news of yet more ‘EU Interference’.

It is worth while taking a look at the following four links (in date order) to see how those, whose hobby is flying, is about to be made that more difficult and likewise how their costs are going to escalate.

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/more-eu-lunacy-regarding-flying.html

David Cameron Sings The Blues!

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/david-cameron-sings-blues.html

EU heads of state and government took important decisions to strengthen the euro at their meeting in Brussels on 28-29 October. They endorsed the final report of the Task Force on Economic Governance and agreed on the need for a permanent crisis mechanism for the euro area.

“With the…
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On 26 October the Agriculture and Fisheries Council reached a political agreement on a regulation which establishes fishing quotas for 2011 in the Baltic Sea for the EU vessels. Compared with last year’s numbers, this legal act provides for a decrease in fishing opportunities, total allowable…
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What A Topsy-Turvy World It Has Become

“Britain insisted on support, even if only declaratory, for EU spending to be kept on a tight rein at a time when several countries are imposing budget cuts.” (my emphasis)

“…….if the last chance to implement reforms is to be cast aside, if no powers are ever to be repatriated, then patently we now live in an unvarnished new reality. If there exists neither the prospect nor the will for reform, there remains no other alternative than for this country to leave the European Union.“

No nation that promotes itself as a democracy can be a member of the European Union in its present form – so what about it Dave, when do we leave?

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-topsy-turvy-world-it-has-become.html

The Gift Of The Gabb

“Taken together, the two statements on economic policy show that nothing has been learnt and nothing forgotten since the last crisis of overexpansion in the 1970s. What the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have promised us is the equivalent of switching on a fan in a room filled with stale air.“

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/gift-of-gabb.html

For Heffer and Heffer, Amen!

“David Cameron and the euro millions roll-over.

Since Lady Thatcher left office it has been easy to predict the outcome of EU summit meetings. A prime minister talks tough beforehand – especially in election campaigns – about defending British interests. Yet when he arrives it is a matter of moments before he is on his knees, doing exactly as he is bidden by our masters in Brussels. 

Dave is no exception, and nor did I expect him to be. It is not just that he reminds us more of Ted Heath every day. It is that he is a natural appeaser, a man born to take the line of least resistance. He is also in bed with serious Leftists and federalists posing as Liberal Democrats, whose enthusiasm for the European project, and indeed for the disastrous notion of a single currency, remains undimmed. And it is part of Dave’s own project to realign his party on the centre-Left, which means, in the end, he will always do what he is told by Brussels. 

There is absolutely no need for a 2.9 per cent rise in our contributions to the EU. Europe is tottering financially. The EU should be saving money, as most countries are, not finding ways to spend more of it. Yet those ways abound. Eurocrats tell us that the new foreign service that the EU has devised, under the profoundly undemocratic Lisbon Treaty, is expensive. I bet it is. They also want to put more money into environmental schemes, overseas aid, and other pointless exercises which, if we feel we have to do them, we ought just to do ourselves. Dave was saying only a few days ago that he would seek a freeze or even a cut in our contribution. For him to roll over so quickly, and to agree to have the taxpayer’s pocket picked in this way, is predictable, but contemptible. 

The EU is a sovietised operation. It is a dictatorship of bureaucracy. Those unelected, and unelectable, officials who run the EU decide what has to happen: and, even if it takes a lot of time, anguish and grief, it happens. The price of an elected head of government saying “no” is ostracism for him and his country. Sometimes, however, ostracism is no bad thing. The EU also has to engage in elaborate pretences and rigging to ensure that its institutions, unviable though they may be, continue to exist. This is true of the euro itself, a grotesquely overvalued currency that is wrecking the continental economy and whose strength fails entirely to reflect the crippled national economies that, with the notable exception of Germany, comprise it. 

It is not least because Germany, and its poodles in France, fear long-term damage to their own interests from these weak economies that new rules on economic management, which would require a revision of the Lisbon treaty, are being proposed. We now await the cunning plan to be devised by eurocrats that will enable only a tiny section of the treaty to be re-opened, as if by keyhole surgery, to write in new rules by typically undemocratic means. Anything else would have to give Dave the opportunity to fulfil his promise and have a referendum on the whole treaty before ratifying any changes, something his apologists in his own party have always claimed he is willing to do. 

We should believe that when we see it. What has happened in the past couple of days is an affirmation of business as usual: an exhibition of Britain’s devastating loss of sovereignty, and the continual willingness of those who should defend us to run up the white flag. It is no surprise to those of us who never believed Dave was a Conservative. Perhaps, though, it has helped open the eyes of those who foolishly thought he was.“

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/for-heffer-and-heffer-amen.html

Cameron Roasted By A Boiling Frog

“Martin Schulz, the German leader of Europe’s Social Democrat MEPs, the parliament’s second biggest bloc, said Mr Cameron’s promise was “nonsense” and the Prime Minister was “setting himself up for a fall”. He said: “The negotiations have barely begun – it is not for Mr Cameron to announce their conclusion.” He added: “The figures he is talking about bear little relation to reality. He is setting himself up for a fall.”

A diplomat from one of EU countries that signed Mr Cameron’s letter predicted that the final deal would be larger than promised. “It will be very difficult to keep at 2.9 per cent with what the parliament is saying,” said the diplomat.

And a European Commission official stressed that Mr Cameron’s guarantee “doesn’t change anything” because legally binding “conciliation” talks continue until Nov 11.
 
In office but not in power, eh, Mr Cameron?“

“The spin says that the proposals from France and Germany for fiscal governance extend to the Eurozone only and so will not affect the UK.

The truth is that the EU might not be able to impose sanctions at this time, but our budget will be subject to as much scrutiny like every member state, including in theory Greece.

Having established common EU scrutiny over our budget, this deal also means a common EU legal framework applicable to “all EU Member States” - irrespective of us being outside the Euro.  The path is now clear for us to be out voted on future EU legislative initiatives involving our internal fiscal affairs. 

We’ve not just given ground over how much of our money we give the EU.  We’ve given the EU a say over how we spend our own money at home.  Some victory, eh.“

And when Cameron has his ‘fall’, it will be a more joyous day than all my 68 birthdays, 68 Christmas’ – and my 3 divorces – all rolled into one!

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/cameron-roasted-by-boiling-frog.html

Words Of Wisdom

“Does this remind you of another British leader who returned from Europe lauding another grand achievement? This ‘spectacular success’ means British taxpayers will have to send around £450m to the EU. If that is considered a success then what in the name of all things holy is the definition of a failure? He genuinely expects us to believe this nonsense and embrace him as a conquering hero rather than what he really is – the impotent figurehead of an EU province sent home with his tail between his legs and carrying a tax demand for nearly half a billion pounds extra per year.“

“David Cameron is a shit for brains, spineless, lying, quisling bastard, devoid of any integrity and possessing a character that makes a plague infested rat skulking in a sewer seem respectable in comparison. I wish he and the rest of the charlatan political class would just fuck off.“

Quite, AM – Quite!

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/words-of-wisdom.html

Review Of Party Funding

“The Coalition Agreement committed the new Government to pursuing “a detailed agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding in order to remove big money from party politics“.

Just asking, like………………..

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/review-of-party-funding.html

Wrangling over the European Union's long-term spending plan for 2014-2020 kicked off at a summit on Friday (29 October), months earlier than anticipated, with Britain securing considerable support for a lean budget.

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The November / December edition of the JRC Newsletter has been published and can be downloaded here. It features an editorial by Dominique Ristori, Deputy Director General for Energy at the European Commission on Europe’s policies for a responsible use of nuclear energy.

This month’s issue also has news on the JRC’s innovation projects competition as well as recent research results on corporate R&d investment, soil biodiversity, fisheries science and mass spectrometry.

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Published on:

29 October 2010

The immune system has evolved to protect individuals from microbial pathogens as well as larger parasites. However, the immune system can sometimes react inappropriately to innocuous antigens, triggering allergic reactions. The potential of microorganisms, microbial products and enzymes to induce respiratory sensitization when used as food and feed additives was investigated in this report. A short review of the state-of-the-art methods to predict allergenicity was also conducted. Our results indicate that there is currently no established model to predict the allergenicity of a molecule. Although in-silico models can be useful to predict cross-reactivity between allergens, they do not take into account phenomenons like the context of presentation of the antigen to the immune system. There is no realiable, predictive in-vitro or in-vivo model of allergenicity. Cases of occupational allergy to both fungi and bacteria have been documented, but allergic reactions to microorganisms purposedly introduced in the work environement seem to concern only a limited number of fungi. Enzymes were more a matter of concern, with 17 out of 71 enzymes investigated in this report being linked to respiratory allergies. Because these risks are well known, enzyme exposures are strictly controlled both by regulatory authorities and companies. The patterns of prevalence of allergic reactions to enzyme indicate that they are more common at the level of enzyme manufacturers and large-scale users than in the general population

Bibliographic review on the potential of microorganisms, microbial products and enzymes to induce respiratory sensitization

Published on:

29 October 2010

Copper and zinc are routinely used as additives in feed for livestock and aquaculture farming. During their use as feed additives, it is inevitable that Cu and Zn will be released to the environment. This project therefore assessed the environmental impact of Cu and Zn arising from use as additives in feed for livestock and aquaculture animals.

The environmental risks of Cu and Zn arising from aquaculture were assessed using simple exposure models recommended by EFSA. Predicted concentrations were below predicted no effect concentrations (PNEC), indicating that the use of both metals in feed additives for fish poses an acceptable risk to the environment where these types of facility exist.

A more complex modelling approach was used for assessing the risks of inputs of Cu and Zn from livestock treatments using the Intermediate Dynamic Model for Metals and soil/agriculture and water chemistry scenarios relevant for a range of European Member States. Overall, the livestock evaluations indicated that environmental risks for Cu and Zn are acceptable at the current time but in the future risks could occur in some systems. The systems most vulnerable to metal input in manure were acid sandy soils. The distribution of these scenarios within Europe is largely in Flanders, the Netherlands, northwestern Germany and Denmark. There is a clear need to better establish whether such soils are as sensitive to metal inputs as is predicted here. Since problems of high metal concentrations in drainflow and runoff, once established, would be difficult to remediate, it is important to proactively assess soil sensitivity before setting policy on manure application.

Pre-assessment of environmental impact of zinc and copper used in animal nutrition

Published on:

29 October 2010

According to EFSA’s Founding Regulation, the Authority is required to “undertake action to identify and characterise emerging risks” in the field of food and feed safety. EFSA provides scientific advice to the risk manager, at both European and Member State level, for the identification of risks present in the food chain. In the area of currently unrecognised but potentially significant risks for public health, EFSA has set up a dedicated unit on emerging risks (EMRISK). Through the identification of drivers of emerging risks, EFSA also intends to anticipate future risks derived from changes in current food/feed production practices or factors impinging on food/feed production or changes in human exposure through food consumption. EFSA aims to establish a data monitoring capacity, data filtering methodology and networking structures to identify emerging risks and drivers of emerging risks in a timely fashion and to communicate these to the risk manager. To date, the first step of this process (data monitoring) is in place. The following steps, that is, filtering and communication, are being rapidly established. Whilst the current data sources monitored are limited, they have been sufficient to enable the elaboration of the procedures for the next steps in the emerging risks identification process. As more data sources become accessible, the process will become more effective. All processes should be in place by mid – 2010 and reported on in EFSA’s first annual report on emerging risks in 2011. By the end of the second year of operation (2012), the soundness and utility of this approach will be given an initial review.

Development and implementation of a system for the early identification of emerging risks in food and feed

Published on:

29 October 2010

Conclusion on the peer review of the pesticide risk assessment of the active substance myclobutanil

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You Are A Statistician – FFS!

“This polling is something I refer to from time to time whenever the EU is in the news and there’s hugely a heap of abuse poured on me for daring to raise it.

But the hard fact is that the vast majority of the public don’t give a money’s – they simply couldn’t care less. The EU has been totally part of our lives since a Conservative government courageously took us in 37 years ago and we’ve got used to it

The idea of Britain joining the Euro has been side-lined and even when the Lisbon treaty was making all the headlines a couple of years ago the MORI figures were very low as can be seen from the chart.

So I always get amused when I see the Westminster village getting into such a state of excitement over it.“

Just a thought……………….

http://witteringsfromwitney.blogspot.com/2010/10/for-statistician-ffs.html