The Absolute Destruction of Everything

[Jack Black]

On 12 August 2008, a Daily Telegraph reporter put the following question to Prince Charles:

Are industrial scale food conglomerates are the way ahead?

Charlie replied:

What, all run by gigantic corporations?... THAT WOULD BE THE ABSOLUTE DESTRUCTION OF EVERYTHING AND THE CLASSIC WAY OF ENSURING THERE IS NO FOOD IN THE FUTURE…If they think this is the way to go....we end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land…

And if they think its somehow going to work because they are going to have ONE FORM OF CLEVER GENETIC ENGINEERING AFTER ANOTHER then again count me out, because THAT WILL BE GUARANTEED TO CAUSE THE BIGGEST DISASTER ENVIRONMENTALLY OF ALL TIME…

What we should be talking about is food security not food production…I think it's heading for real disaster…

Look at India's Green Revolution. It worked for a short time but now the price is being paid. I have been to the Punjab where YOU HAVE SEEN THE DISASTERS THAT HAVE TAKEN PLACE AS RESULT OF THE OVER DEMAND ON IRRIGATION BECAUSE OF THE HYBRID SEEDS AND GRAINS THAT HAVE BEEN PRODUCED WHICH DEMAND HUGE AMOUNTS OF WATER. THE WATER TABLE HAS DISAPPEARED. They have huge problems with water level, with pesticide problems, and complications which are now coming home to roost.

Look at western Australia. Huge salinisation problems. I have been there. Seen it. Some of the excessive approaches to modern forms of agriculture…

IF YOU ARE NOT WORKING WITH NATURAL ASSISTANCE YOU CAUSE UNTOLD PROBLEMS which become very expensive and very difficult to undo. IT PLACES IMPOSSIBLE BURDENS ON NATURE AND LEADS TO ACCUMULATING PROBLEMS WHICH BECOME MORE DIFFICULT TO SORT OUT.

WE HAVE GONE WORKING AGAINST NATURE FOR TOO LONG.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2008/08/13/ftcharles113.xml

The forthright Princely opinion cited above can be heard here:

News - Telegraph TV

Good for you, Charlie.

We do like a bloke who tells the truth.

Here's another embarassing truth our future King once told:

It is still a little known fact that 25% of homeless people are ex-servicemen.

He informed us of this at the Business Action on Homelessness Awards, St James's Palace, on 27 March 2002.

Nice to know that at least one bigwig gives a damn about the earth and it's people, isn't it?

It's also extremely gratifying for the routinely demonised Cassandra when a top table Johnny breaks ranks and lets the man on the Clapham omnibus know just how little his own politicians care for him.

On 17 July 2008, No 10's Strategy Unit in the Cabinet Office released a report titled, Food Matters.

This may be viewed here:

http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/board/andrewjarvis17jul08.pdf
In this unheralded document, the Government admitted the following:

Corporations are conducting a gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong. Why else are we facing all these challenges, climate change and everything?

Thus does a government that has, for eleven long years, jumped to the tune of the international financiers and multinational corporation owners every bit as much as Margaret Thatcher's ever did, parade some wholly disingenuous outrage for the gullible to applaud.

Lord Sainsbury gave New Labour its biggest ever single donation in September, 1997.

Just 3 days into the following month, Tony B ennobled him and, a year later, he presented the unelected Lord with the Science Ministry. His qualifications for the job, over and above the £12,000,000 or so that he had already contributed to the Party coffers, (and the £8,000,000 or so he would stump up in the future) were not immediately obvious, as he left university with a BA in history and psychology.

If you were to look back through Sainsbury’s speeches you would discover that many of them were concerned with the promotion of genetically engineered crops and food. Indeed, in December, 1998, just three weeks after he attended the first meeting of the Cabinet's Ministerial Group on Biotechnology and Genetic Modification, Tony Blair’s new Science Minister entertained three executives from Monsanto, the largest biotechnology company in the world, in his private office at the Department of Trade and Industry.

However, when Sainsbury was questioned by Sue Lawley, during his February 2004 appearance on Desert Island Discs, he stated categorically that, governmentally, he had no influence upon such matters. Moreover, the thoughtful Lord assured Lawley that he got up and left the room, whenever the debate turned to genetic engineering and its environmental consequences.

Three weeks later, on 22 February, The Observer told us this:

One of Tony Blair's closest allies, Lord Sainsbury, was fighting for his political life last night after he was accused of breaching strict government guidelines over his business interests.

Leaked minutes obtained by The Observer reveal that the Science Minister, who has extensive business interests in the biotechnology sector, was at a key Cabinet meeting which drew up a top-level strategy to promote the fledgling industry, a policy shift from which Sainsbury could reap large dividends.

At the meeting Sainsbury was tasked with asking the Prime Minister to use his influence with European leaders to promote the biotech industry. By doing so Sainsbury is accused of contravening Article Six of Cabinet Office guidelines that stipulate:

'Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or appears to arise, between their public duties and their private interests'...

His investments in the biotech industry include Diatech, a company that holds a number of patents for GM products and was placed in a blind trust when he became a government Minister. Through the trust he also has a sizeable stake in another company, Innotech Investments, which has a stake in a US-based firm that seeks out new drugs to cure major health issues.

Paradigm Genetics describes itself as having 'advanced research capabilities in biomarker-enabled drug discovery, with an internal focus on diabetes and obesity'. Also, through his Gatsby Charitable Foundation, Sainsbury has injected millions of pounds into the study of plant genetics at the John Innes Centre, which conducts research into GM crops...

Critics of Sainsbury say that the leaked minutes, from a science and biotechnology committee meeting held earlier this month, show for the first time the clear conflict of interest between the Minister's business interests and his political position. At the meeting, Ministers discussed a number of key ways to support the UK's biotechnology sector. These included limiting the EU's ability to raise ethical issues surrounding biotechnology, launching an awareness campaign to change MPs and the public's perception about the industry, and encouraging European leaders to push its potential benefits on their health Ministers.

Sainsbury seemingly played a crucial role during the meeting, with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw tasking the Science Minister to contact the Prime Minister on ways to win support within the EU for the biotech industry...

Norman Baker, the Lib Dem environment spokesman, said Sainsbury's position was indefensible.

Two-and-a-half years later, Sainsbury was still in office and the chap who ennobled him had not asked him to go.

However, New Labour's principal donor left of his own accord, for "personal reasons,'' on 10 November 2006, saying his decision had nothing to do with the police investigation into whether Blair's government had dispensed honours by the trough-load in return for huge wads of cash.

Sainsbury is Jewish.

And, just in case anyone thinks I'm an anti-semite, at least one sixteenth of our future King's ancestral line is Jewish also.

And he's alright.

Except for the "Prince of Faiths" thing.

Which didn't impress me much.

They chopped the head off the first King Charlie.

He was alright too.