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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (93038)	4/12/2003 8:57:56 PM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

If this stuff is true The telegraph has a reputation for printing those kind of stories that shock or "confirm" right wing views. May be true, but of course requires much better confirmation. Just been listening to Tony Benn on TV new. Crusty old left winger who has been right on many things over the years. Was one of the anti war protestors demonstrating today. Mind you he was one of the guys who supported Concorde too. sundayherald.com coach trip on Concorde MORE often than not Tony Benn is dismissed as a bampot, not -- it must said -- without reason. Yet he will be forever remembered as the minister who 'saved' Concorde. Back in the neolithic age -- 1974 -- it was he who, as Secretary of State for Industry, committed Britain to the supersonic plane when there were calls for it to be ditched. Long before everyone came to acknowledge Concorde as one of the wonders of the modern world, Mr Benn was a fan. In 1969, he witnessed the first test flight, the atmosphere for which he compared to a village cricket match. It may have been another small step for mankind but to Mr Benn it felt like something out of Biggles, with Concorde's pilot, Brian 'Trubby' Trubshaw, muttering continually to himself: 'It's the paperwork that's holding us up, it's those chaps doing the paperwork.' After he finally gave the green light for Concorde, Mr Benn insisted on taking a group of Labour shop stewards on a flight. Though they worked in the aviation industry, most had never flown before. Wisely, several made wills before leaving the ground. Thankfully, all went well. 'We just behaved like people on a coach trip to Weston-Super-Mare or Southend,' recorded Mr Benn in his diary. Pepys himself could not have put it better. War is over, but not for hedgehogs THE war may have ended but the slaughter goes on. I refer, of course, to the hedgehog cull on North Uist. The Daily Mail's man on the front line is John 'Wee Free' MacLeod, reporting from the safety of Harris. He wants the hedgehogs to be removed from Uist because they are 'alien'. Apparently, the present population of 5000 is descended from two hedgehogs who entered the island illegally in 1974, possibly on false passports. I'm happy to take Mr MacLeod's word for this. I do wonder though if he has thought through the logic of his argument. Is he saying that anything or anyone who is not indigenous to the Hebrides should be culled? How, then, does someone called MacLeod stand? Can he prove beyond reasonable doubt that the first creature or beastie on Harris was a MacLeod? If he can, he may stay. If not, then Scottish Natural Heritage may have to deal with him. He shouldn't worry too much. SNH's record in dealing with the hedgehogs is impeccable and I'm sure they can trusted to deal similarly with Wee Frees. 'They are painlessly doping them with gas,' Mr MacLeod relates, with the sangfroid of a hardened war reporter, 'and killing them with lethal injections.'