Pat Gardiner wrote:

You do have to realise that senior members of the Country Land and
Business Association went out of their way to wrongly, publicly and
deliberately blame HMC&E for the 2000/2001 Swine Fever and Foot and
Mouth outbreaks.
A senior customs officer at the inaguration of the "Fat Labradors
Fiasco" at Heathrow, bravely and correctly made it quite clear that
he regarded the operation as a waste of taxpayer's money.

Immediately Farmers Weekly launched a wild attack on a named and
respected senior customs officer calling for his resignation.

Some weeks later, Customs acting on the matter as the CLA had
demanded, followed an illegal meat import via Heathrow to Inverness
and "did" the 4WDs in the airport carpark for the wrong colour
diesel, whilst they were waiting.

Later, they thoughtfully pointed out that they were saving the
taxpayer's money by killing two birds with one stone.

The message was missed by the CLA representative on
uk.business.agriculture, but the exchange via the media is hilarious.
A classic that all, of all opinions, can enjoy.

Anyway, I have nothing against shooting and nothing against those
that are against.

But I don't like tax fraud and do have a sense of humour.

Nobody likes being blamed for something they did not do. They tend to
get the idea that those blaming them have something to hide.

My money's on HMC&R. If the report is right, and that remains to be
proved, the CLA membership are about to get very thoroughly turned
over.

That is the same HMC&E that were so incompetent when running an anti fraud
investigation that they turned an illegal £10 M enterprise into an illegal
£500 M enterprise and allowed over 100 defendants to walk free from court?
As a consequence they were merged into (taken over by?) the Inland Revenue.

--
Old Codger
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What matters in politics is not what happens, but what you can make people
believe has happened. [Janet Daley 27/8/2003]