Thread by @WhatNowDoc

Back in 1985, there were two major topics of conversation, amongst others I'm sure. One was the enduring famine in Ethiopia which, night after night, brought us memorable pictures of starving children with distended bellies by Michael Buerk 1/

In stark contrast, the second item was the continuing inefficiency of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Economic Community (EEC). As a result of subsidising inefficient farming industries, particularly in France and Italy but also in this country 2/

We had been entertained by the Butter Mountain, the Wine Lake, the destruction of millions of tons of rotting produce, much of it tipped into the ocean, and now we were dealing with the spontaneously combusting Grain Mountain. 3/

In this country, alone, every vacant building virtually, every barn, warehouse, anything with a roof on it was being rented extortionately at taxpayers' expense and stuffed to the gunnels with surplus grain, optimistically waiting for a buyer. 4/

Grain stores on this scale generate their own heat, literal and metaphorical, and there were frequent fires erupting as spontaneous combustion, perhaps brought on by the voluminous quantities of hot air generated by hapless politicians, took hold across the country. 5/

All this when our fellow human beings, just across the Mediterranean Sea, in the land of our forbears, were dying for wont of basic food. Control of these arrangements and payments to farmers and others was vested in an anachronistic organisation with ... 6/

the grand title of "The Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce", known simply as the Intervention Board. It was established under the European Communities Act, 1972 and was only abolished in 2001 when it was subsumed into Defra. 7/

It was the only organisation in the United Kingdom that could trade in certain foodstuffs, a sort of nationalised food wholesaler, reminiscent of Stalinist practices. All grain had to be sold to them and only they could sell it on to a buyer. 8/

They're job was to limit the release of product onto the market in order to maintain the highest possible prices. These two events, together with a highly successful Christmas single by Band Aid the previous year, encouraged Bob Geldof to stage Live Aid, 9/

to raise funds for the starving peoples of Ethiopia. I heard the announcement by Bob on BBC2 one evening and the following day, I called the office number that had been quoted, to offer whatever assistance my companies and I could offer. 10/

To my amazement, Bob called back and we had a lengthy conversation about what he was trying to achieve, what it was he wanted to do with the money raised and how we might help. Bob wanted me to buy grain, whole ships full of the stuff and ship it to Ethiopia. 11/

Buying commodities and shipping them was what I did for a living in those days. I didn't envisage the slightest problem, I was determined to do it at the lowest cost I could possibly negotiate. I asked around and that's when I discovered the... 12/

absolute monopoly of the Intervention Board. The last thing I wanted to do was to deal with either a Quango or a government department but it seemed there was no (legal) alternative. I remember the telephone call, like it was yesterday. 13/

I seem to remember their offices were in Reading, for some unknown reason. Eventually I was put through to someone who, apparently, was charged with the task of selling the country's vast stocks of unwanted, highly subsidised and expensively warehoused product. 14/

I assumed mine would be a very welcome call and all I would have to do is some tough negotiating to get the best price. I was wrong on all fronts. Meet the most boring and characterless individual I have ever encountered, certainly the most frustrating. 15/

Me: Hello. I want to buy grain, lots of it.
IB: Ooh, I don't think you'd want to buy from us.
Me: But you're the only people in the country I can buy from.
IB: But you won't like the price.
Me: Do I have a choice?
IB: Err, no, I don't believe you do.
16/

Me: So can you quote me your prices.
IB: You won't like the price.
Me: Try me.
IB: No, you really wouldn't like the price.
Me: What is the price?
IB: Much more than you'd want to pay.
Me: How can you possibly know that?
IB: Because no one likes our prices.
17/

Me: How can you know if you won't tell me what they are?
IB: Like I said, no one likes the price.
Me: Can I buy from anywhere else?
IB: Err, no.
Me: But unless you tell me your prices, I can't buy from you either.
IB: That's up to you.
Me: I beg your pardon?
18/

IB: It's entirely up to you whether you buy or not.
Me: But surely it's up to you to quote me a price, then I can decide whether to buy?
IB: You won't because you won't like the price.
Me: You do sell grain, don't you?
IB: Well, we're the only ones who can.
19/

Me: But have you ever actually sold any?
IB: What, recently?
Me: Well, let's say: This year?
IB: What, actually sold?
Me: Yes, sold, exchanged for money?
IB: What, sold, this year?
Me: Yes, this year?
IB: Err, no, not actually sold, not this year, no.
20/

Me: Let me get this right, we have mountains of grain setting fire to the nation's warehouses that you're paying hugely expensive storage rates for, you're the only people that can sell grain, you refuse to quote me a price because you say I won't like it if you do.. 21/

...you're the only people in the country I can buy from and you haven't sold an actual grain of grain in the past year, but, you tell me, your job is to sell grain?
IB: That's correct.
Me: Have you ever heard of the famine in Ethiopia?
22/

IB: Yes, of course I have (indignantly) but that's nothing to do with us.....

Me, now: I want to repeat that: "Nothing to do with us."

23/

It was there, that day, after replacing the telephone in it's rest, that I finally realised I had been duped back in 1975 and that if I was ever asked again, I would say emphatically "Non" to remaining in this wretched, sordid arrangement. 24/

At that time I could never have guessed at the far worse horrors that were to follow as the EEC morphed inexorably into the all powerful, corrupt concept of the European Union. 25/25