Dig for victory... or else!

Once the government got round to banning hunting, smoking, lightbulbs and clamping down on alcohol, I knew it would only be a matter of time before the swivel-eyed fanatics turned their attention towards our food. And so it has come to pass.

The UK’s agriculture minister, Hilary Benn, has proclaimed that we should all change our eating habits. The vegetarian minister wishes to ‘encourage’ us to eat less red meat in order to reduce the methane gas produced every time a poor cow farts. Methane makes up just 4% of the UK’s so-called greenhouse gasses and as the UK produces less than 2% of all global emissions, I’m struggling at this point to work out how a small reduction in the total number of British cows is going to make any difference to the fairy tale of global warming. Incidentally, what’s the weather like where you are? It’s -8 degrees here and bloody freezing!

So, the government has decided that all its subjects must henceforth keep a bucket in the kitchen that will be used for ‘food slops’ and leftovers. These must be scraped into the government slop bucket or else householders will face the threat of fines or imprisonment. The food will then be taken away for composting, no doubt with a massive increase in our council taxes to pay for this weekly service. One thing is for sure, the sale of air fresheners will rocket, until the government bans them.

Households who throw out too much or too little will no doubt be investigated for wasting too much food or those with too little in their buckets will be accused of disposing of their leftovers illegally. You couldn’t make this stuff up. I doubt whether the poor sods that lived through the worst years of the Soviet Union had to put up with this much intrusion into their private lives, and all for the sake of some loony eco warrior’s wet dream. Oddly enough, we are already forbidden from putting any foodstuffs into garden compost least mad cow disease enters the food chain. So God knows how this new system will work.

The government also has a few other treats up its culinary sleeve for us to enjoy. Special offers such as Buy One Get One Free (or BOGOF as it’s so charmingly known) will be outlawed on perishable food in order to stop waste. That will go down well with hard-pressed and overtaxed families, I’m sure. Also, Best Before dates will be phased out, probably to be replaced by a skull-and-crossbones logo with a date next to it showing the last possible moment of consumption before botulism or salmonella will set in. Restaurants and takeaways will also be forced to put health warnings on any dishes that displease the stick thin Mr Benn and any other ascetic types working in his Food Ministry.

I stupidly thought liberal democracy was all about increased freedom and choice. And yet here we are, supposedly one of the richest nations on earth, and our government is bossing us around as though Hitler is sat on our doorstep, waiting to eat our babies. It brings to mind the wartime Dig for Victory campaign and all the austerity and rationing that went with it. The sheer illiberalism of these control freaks is truly scary. I’m struggling to imagine what they’ll tax or control next.

Can anyone sell me an Australian passport?