Prawn Crackers
HM Customs & Excise clarification of the VAT liability of prawn crackers.
(a.) Prawn crackers packaged for human consumption without further preparation (ie, sold in retail packs) and made from potato, potato flour, potato starch or from the swelling of cereals or cereal products are standard-rated. However, those made from tapioca are zero-rated, because tapioca is not a cereal, but is made from the cassava plant, a root crop.
(b.) Prawn crackers sold in a restaurant as part of a meal to eat in are standard-rated. When supplied as part of a take-away meal they may be freshly cooked but as they are normally eaten cold they are zero-rated; unless they meet the criteria set out in (a).
Glad we've cleared that up, then.
Wal-Mart
The American supermarket giant Wal-Mart recently acquired Britain's Asda chain of supermarkets, causing a certain amount of debate as to Wal-Mart's desirability. It was announced that the arrival of Wal-Mart would "revolutionise shopping in Britain". Many are of the opinion that if we must go out looking for role models, we should choose a little more carefully (See my Links page for more on that debate). Some months before the acquisition happened the CEO of Wal-Mart flew to Britain for private talks with our Prime Minister, Mr Blair. It was pointed out how unusual this was, for an American businessman with (seemingly) no connection to the UK to be able to meet Mr Blair in such a style.
This week (last week of July 1999), a re-shuffle of the upper echelons of Government, the Cabinet, was announced. The planning minister Richard Caborn was given another post, and replaced by one Nick Raynsford. A quality daily newspaper observed:
"With American retail giant Wal-Mart poised to cross the Atlantic, is the transfer of planning minister, a noted party-pooper when it comes to out-of-town developments, a coincidence? His replacement, the promoted Nick Raynsford, is believed to take a more tolerant attitude".
I feel sure it has no connection whatsoever to Mr Blair's meeting with Wal-Mart's executive, and it is just idle and malicious speculation on the part of the newspaper concerned.
"Burying our Cam hearts in the clay"
This was written by the farmer & journalist Robin Page, and published in the Daily Telegraph on June 5th 1999.
The grand plan to turn the whole of East Anglia into one gigantic building site and laughingly call it "sustainable development" is progressing nicely. The trail-blazer is a new development in Cambridgeshire that has been given the absurd name of Cambourne. The project is attracting droves of media commentators keen to see how a new community will be created. Of course, communities are not "created"; they grow and develop for historical, economic and social reasons.
Destroying them is a much easier process. Thanks to their slavish adherence to the CAP, Nick Brown and his Government cronies are doing their utmost to destroy agricultural communities up and down the country.
One Radio 4 reporter suggested that my opposition to the development was unreasonable in view of the rising population. "What rising population?" I asked. The poor lady was under the impression that the building spree was required to house an increasing population. She was stunned when I produced figures indicating a British population rise of of 0.28% a year - since reduced to 0.14% in the "World in Figures" section of The Economist. She had not realised that much of Britain's alleged "housing need" is to allow a large section of the working population to move around. The building boom in Cambridgeshire is simply to permit hi-tech firms to have "Cambridge" on their headed notepaper rather than Wigan; hardly a case of sustainable and needed development.
The Cambourne site covers 1000 acres of solid clay and on top of this drainage nightmare the developers plan to build 3300 homes. Even the principal architect of the main building firm let out that "we will make the best of a most unsuitable site", but that is the way planning goes.
The way in which planning permission was granted broke even the South Cambridgeshire District Council's own rules, yet hardly any of the councillors, the officers or the Ombudsman seemed unduly concerned. As a councillor there myself, I was dumbfounded. If this was democracy and planning at work, then the latter certainly obliterated the former.
The site is on the highest part of West Cambridgeshire, guaranteeing immense drainage problems and a terrible eyesore on the skyline. The 1000 acres actually form the watershed of the Bourn Brook, a tributary of the River Cam, on which the Countryside Restoration Trust is a major landowner and where otters are supposed to be a protected species. The whole project was delayed for more than 12 months until the developers agreed to ensure that surface water drainage and sewage did not damage the Bourn valley or the River Cam lower down.
No sooner had the agreement been signed and the work begun than an application was made for an emergency drain to be constructed near the Bourn Brook for the discharge of raw sewage in times of emergency. This application went straight to the Environment Agency and totally bypassed - as the rules allow - the planning authority. Incredibly, the so-called Environment Agency immediately gave permission for the discharge pipe and so once again the whole democratic process was undermined.
One day the otters of the upper Cam may be swimming in raw sewage. Three hearty cheers for the Environment Agency and the Secretary of State for the Environment, Mr Prescott.
Last updated February 19th 2004
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