Take control. Don't fall for all their guff

We know that all of us, to a greater or lesser extent, have existences dictated by other people and situations. In today's hurly-burly that is the business of living, W H Davies' immortal lines about the freedom to stand and stare seem particularly apt. And elusive, too.

Some of you might believe that jobs make the greatest demands on our time and energies, and, broadly speaking, you would be right. A few would cite peer pressures and the media as being the major influences on the will of the average person.

All valid. Yet think long and hard do you really feel in control of your life?

Two recent news items provide grim pointers to the fact that the island that is the individual is about to be engulfed by seas which have risen due to another kind of climate fluctuation. A global warming with a difference, if you like. So, in no particular order of preference, here's the first depressing snippet.

Tony Blair is to resist post-election pressure for a snap referendum on the euro in spite of renewed warnings, reinforced by the Ford Motor Company, that Britain will suffer by staying out.

The Prime Minister is making plain that it would be wrong to "bounce" the electorate into a referendum soon after an election. However, Mr Blair, along with Chancellor Gordon Brown, is trying to persuade the EU to speed up political as well as economic reform as a way of making it more popular in Britain.

It has been claimed that senior Cabinet Ministers say privately that unless the EU improves its democratic legitimacy, the chances of winning the referendum are slight. In other words, pull out all the stops so that the vote, when called, comes up with the "right" result... and the great British electorate falls for it just as they were duped by Heath's guff in the 1970s.

Item number two. Farm trials have begun for the world's first genetically modified wheat, which means the first GM loaf of bread could be on supermarket shelves within three years.

The GM wheat is under development by an American agricultural biotechnology company that intends to market it aggressively in the face of anticipated strong opposition from environmentalists and the organic food industry.

The advent of GM wheat is likely to become one of the most controversial issues in global agriculture. It is almost certain to generate intense protests from consumer groups opposed to what they see as unwarranted interference in farming and food production.

The first GM wheat will be a spring-sown variety engineered to include a gene for conferring resistance to a specialised weedkiller. This means that the wheat can be sold alongside the herbicide so farmers can control weeds more efficiently.

Right. New Labour the party that sold all its principles to become elected - wants to bounce us into an artificially created, no-hoper of a toy money currency.

And a giant American corporation wants to bounce us into eating a product that by its very means of production may spell disaster for certain aspects of ecological diversity.

New Labour and big business - they've a lot in common. Now who would have thought that during the Grunwick dispute, eh, my fine comrades?

The reason why New Labour doesn't mind jettisoning the pound and thereby ending Britain's ability to govern itself is because, deep down, it is an internationalist party.

Many though not all of its rank and file hold this country, its institutions and traditions in utter contempt. There is evidence all around, from the laughable minor eccentricities of political correctness to the race relation industry's persecution of the police and the corresponding inevitable breakdown that has ensued on the sink estates.

So what if the abolition of the pound means the loss of sovereignty, and Parliament is reduced to the status of a nodding dog in the back window of a Ford Cortina, say the wolves in New Labour's clothing.

We didn't manage to turn Britain into an island version of East Germany, but with the EU's help, we'll achieve the same thing by other means, dribble a hundred activists each called Dave, bleating from Conway to Consett, Penzance to Perth.

Meanwhile, the public - wisely, slowly but surely, changing to organic food is having its head turned by the same softening-up process. The Americans are resisting calls to have GM food labelled and so, within a relatively short period, unmarked food bread, something we all eat - will be turning up in our shops and on our plates.

Now, it may be that you think it is no bad thing for Britain to surrender certain rights in order to belong to a wider global club. Indeed, there are some who insist that the political/patriotic considerations should take a back seat to the economic factors. That is the view of big business, certainly.

And there are those who maintain wrongly, cynically or both that the only way to feed the world is by accelerating the growth of genetic modification techniques.

Then, on the other hand, there are those who insist that it must be the individual, having been given access to the pros and cons, who should make the final judgement.

But in a world where British governments have poured billions down the drain in levies to the corrupt monolith that is the EC - this present administration alone has blown £20m flogging the dead horse that is the euro - what hope is there for the man or woman in the street?

With odds stacked against the ordinary citizen, it doesn't matter whether it is New Labour sell-out or New Firm hard-sell. New Labour, New Firm... same difference.

It all adds up to the same thing. Because it boils down to power in the hands of a small group of individuals ultimately denying us freedom of choice that of governing our own country and governing what we want to eat.

You've got to hand it to New Labour, though. They've won for all those old lefties who once wanted Britain to become an offshore colony of the Russian Empire have achieved the next best thing, thanks to euroland.

Only, unlike Marie Antoinette and her famous admonition regarding cake, these refugees from England's ancien regime have gazed down on the peasants and said let them eat bread. GM bread, naturally.

Anyway, finish that drink and pour yourself another, a bigger one this time. Don't you just love to be in control.