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Self-Sufficiency in Style

stop the world?

part eight

In parts one to seven we introduced you to Britain's Swine Fever and Foot and Mouth epidemics and made some startling claims about their worldwide significance. 

The writer introduced himself and his wife into the story and told you that we caught the government officials faking the records on three quite separate occasions. We were to catch them again later lying to the world.

We told you how the police warned us to be careful and how we used many different channels of complaint, even notifying a Select Committee of the House of Commons that there was a cover-up under way. 

Despite the fact that they used a former SAS officer to try to force us out of our home for daring to complain to Parliament, the Speaker of the House of Commons refused to offer us protection.

We introduced the possibility that Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the throne of England was involved - and risked ridicule, but today, nobody is laughing at the writer, St James's Palace is in disarray with a whole series of allegations, including  irregular accounting in his agricultural estate - The Duchy of Cornwall.

The situation was about to get even worse. Escalating to this very day and introducing now the possibility that not just BSE and vCJD, but also SARS, the new human epidemic, is involved.

At the same time, we continued an acrimonious correspondence with the Chief Veterinary Officer of the UK in trying to get him to take some action.

Letters to the police, sent at the same time, were ignored by them.

We arranged to visit our MP, the Right Honourable John MacGregor OBE - now Lord McGregor of Pulham Market in the County of Norfolk.

Mr MacGregor, as he then was, seemed a lucky choice.

We knew he was a former Agriculture Minister and we presumed he would know something about the subject of livestock farming.

Just how involved he was came as a big surprise.

The instruction that we were to be forced from our home had obviously come from the top.

"A culture of secrecy that risked our lives.

The cast of characters at the heart of the BSE saga: The roles they played, the decisions they made.

John MacGregor

Minister of agriculture 1987-89. MacGregor was informed of BSE by Maff officials in July 1987. He initially opposed a slaughter and compensation policy for infected cattle because of the cost. Instead he ordered Professor Sir Richard Southwood and a panel of experts to investigate the new disease and the possible risks to human health."

The Sunday Times October 29, 2000

Our letter included these words... (the Chief Vet) "is still refusing to bring the police in...my wife and I have been very frightened."

Although we did not know it at the time, the Swine Fever epidemic was over, but Foot and Mouth had not yet arrived, although we now know it was present in England.

We were between disasters although a report on the BSE/Mad Cow/vCJD fiasco had reported a couple of months previously.

"The Sunday Times" had reported on Mr MacGregor's role - see opposite.

An appointment was made for the evening of  23 February 2001 at Diss. 

Mr MacGregor was late arriving from London, not too surprising as Foot and Mouth made its devastating first appearance that very week. He only saw us for a few minutes. 

We handed him another short summary of the circumstances. This included the name of the former SAS officer - and the fact that we knew he had met the then Minister for Agriculture, Nick Brown before coming to our home.

Mr MacGregor commented that "Nick Brown would not get involved in anything like that." 

We take that pretty seriously. Both MacGregor and Brown are Privy Councillors. MacGregor may well already have spoken to Brown on the matter.

We left our complete file with Mr MacGregor to take matters further.

A quick face to face meeting.

British Quality Pigs

at the centre of the Swine Fever Epidemic

Britain's largest pork producer

sold for nothing

within 24 hours.

The same company that was heavily involved in the Mad Cow/BSE/vCJD fiasco. Suppliers of cattle feed containing beef protein.

The same company that owned the first pig to be infected with Swine Fever.

The same company that owned all the pigs at all the farms in the first wave of infection and presumably supplied most, if not all, of the pig feed.

The same company that was prosecuted and heavily fined for moving pigs during the outbreak.

The same company that faced charges of animal cruelty from the RSPCA during the outbreak. The charges were dropped because of the methods used to obtain the evidence. The investigators were heavily fined instead and their movements controlled.

The same company that owns a whole range of businesses in China including pig genetics and animal feed.

The same company that was in a close business relationship with the former SAS Major and had been heavily involved with both the British and Irish security services.

It is obviously not possible for him to spell out his associations to every constituent who come to see him, but given the gravity of the charges and his involvement in BSE,  he can't have felt very comfortable.

Intriguingly, given all the circumstances, he may well have known the Major. 

His insistence that "Nick Brown would not get involved in anything like that" certainly did have a ring of sincerity.

Following the meeting, he did write to Nick Brown seeking an explanation. More of this later.

Anyway, Mr MacGregor, was soon to become Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market. We wish him well in his retirement from the House of Commons.

He wrote to Nick Brown on our behalf seeking an explanation.

The report telling us appeared in Rupert Murdoch's "Times" newspaper when reporting that the company had been convicted of the illegal movement of pigs during Swine Fever.

It also mentioned that BQP was owned by the famous Weston family and that Gary Weston (now the late Gary Weston) was a friend of Prince Charles, Prince of Wales. It also told us that Weston was a big contributor to Prince Charles's charities.

The news report has been removed from the archives. Rupert Murdoch the owner is a naturalised US citizen, formerly an Australian republican. We can be sure the US authorities have been told what he knows.

Westons sold their massive pig business for a reported "no money" and "within 24 hours without documents being completed."

Someone was very worried indeed. If the trade press are to be believed, they had just given away the biggest pig business in Britain with hundreds of farms. There was hundreds of millions of pounds involved and a second, even more serious epidemic was yet to bite.

As for us, we had even more reason to be worried. We had walked right into a scandal that would shake the world. We were in serious danger. We knew that lies were being told and documents faked, but still had no idea why so many people should do so many strange things.

We filled the car with fuel, got out the passports and prepared to run for political asylum abroad.

But our role was not over, by an almost unbelievable coincidence, we were about to be catapulted into playing a central role in foot and mouth too, even before we had caught our breath from Swine Fever.

As always, please check our facts, you are not going to be asked to take much on trust. You can do most of it from your computer.

In selecting these sources, the writer is also providing information on some strange quirks of the unwritten British Constitution to US and other non- Commonwealth readers.

Nick Brown and John MacGregor, although from different parties, are both former Agriculture Ministers, both Privy Councillors and both were involved in epidemics. Nick Brown remains a Cabinet Minister. John MacGregor is now in the House of Lords.

There are plenty of sources of information about both.

Information on the Privy Council  

Since Part 7 was published, the first signs of enquiries into the agricultural affairs of Prince Charles have begun. Prince Charles runs the Duchy of Cornwall - a massive land estate. Unfortunately the newspaper making the running - "The Mail on Sunday," although important, does not publish on the WWW - although it is often quoted by other papers.

The Weston food empire is huge, including Associated British Foods  and stretching over all five continents, but especially strong in Canada and the UK. Any search for Weston will bring more and more connections and companies. Many of the brand names are world famous.

Much information has been removed from the WWW, but information on the start of CSF at British Quality Pigs is available here. On the prosecution for illegal movements, only a few references are still available for example. The failed prosecution for cruelty is even harder to find - just a shadow from someone in Wales.

The missing news report was http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,31143,00.html

Much of the information on this page, but not all, was given long ago on uk.business agriculture and on "Pigging It" where there is an account of the Swine Fever Epidemic, in arrears. 

The best independent source of information on Foot and Mouth can be found on Warmwell.

British Quality Pigs

at the centre of the Swine Fever Epidemic

Britain's largest pork producer

sold for nothing

within 24 hours.

Norfolk, 16 April  2003

the world of food and agricultural crime

from

 the appropriately  named Hangman's Cottage, just to the south of Misery Corner.