George W Bush has publicly stated that the USA will drop its agriculture subsidies if the EU takes similar steps with the Common Agricultural Policy. The statement was made in an interview with Trevor McDonald to be aired today on ITV's Tonight program.

I welcome this new move and call on Tony, Jacques and friends to live up to the challenge. Strangely, even the Party of European Socialists have called on the EU to scrap the CAP!

Back to Bush though; let's have a look at exactly why the man who just 3 years ago signed into law an agriculture bill which almost doubled US agriculture subsidies now wants to be in a position to drop them. Could it be, perhaps, because his government has run up the biggest fiscal defecit in American history and are looking for ways to save money?

Amazingly, defenders of the CAP here in Northern Ireland (and they range from Sinn Fein to the UUP and DUP!) have said that for some Ulster farmers, the subsidies provide most of their income - THAT'S THE FUCKING PROBLEM!!

Subsidies shouldn't be a source of "income." They should be at most a temporary measure to allow farms to modernise or buy in technology to become profitable. Farmers should not be paid nearly £177,000 of public money like UFU president Campbell Tweed was this year - is it any wonder the UFU aren't for reform!? It's time these guys lived in the real world with the rest of us.