Something I Wrote in 1989

You can't have failed to notice the impending threat to certain flavours of British Crisps coming from Europe recently - it's certainly received enough publicity from the media.

If there's one thing guaranteed to arouse media, it's a threat to a British institution (like Lager, Sausages, and of course the great British Pound) from the Eurocrats.

But why are our great British crips on the Euro-hit list? Apparently certain flavours of crisp contain artificial sweeteners - the first reason given for the impending ban is that Crisps were accidentally omitted from a list of foods in which the EEC would allow artificial sweeteners.

Other reports claim that the ban is because such sweeteners could be harmful - the British crisp industry quickly retorted that you'd have to eat 18 bags a day to exceed danger levels.

However sensible, or crazy, this sounds, the media would have you believe that Britain is up in arms at the prospect of losing Prawn Cocktail crisps, amongst other flavours. "They stopped our lamb but they won't stop our crisps!", etc.. Tabloid hacks at The Sun desperately trying to find something to rhyme with the name of the Eurocrat who brought this all about so they can run a snappy front-page headline like "Up Yours Delors!"

Heaven knows how much worse the fuss would have been if crisps were produced by British Farmers!

Frankly, it's somewhat preposterous. Europeans threatening the "Great British Crisp" brought about a sense of Deja Vu in me... Remember Yes, Minister? If you do, then you'll remember the (ficticious) storyline whereby the "Great British Sausage" was under threat from the EEC.

Jim Hacker (the Minister) forced the EEC to back down and swept into public favour - and subsequently became Prime Minister.

Do you get the impression that the Great British Crisp Ban could be no more than a scam instigated by Conservative Central Office? After all - all voters like Prawn Cocktail crisps... No.. Surely not.


Oh, the conspiracy theories! Of course that was 1989, deep in the mistrustful era that only a decade of harsh Conservative government can foster in a rebellious young lad. More to the point, though, since this story was reported in newspapers, it's hard to say whether it was actually even remotely true. (Some web pages suggest that Prawn Cocktail and Spring Onion flavoured crisps were very briefly banned until some legislation was re-worded, but I can find no primary sources supporting this.) Proving that some things never go out of style, a similar story turned up more than a decade later in 2003 with a European threat to smokey bacon crisps, causing widespread hoo-hah, but I suspect that the the EU's rebuttal was too trifling a concern to be reported with equal prominence.