The world is full of contradictions, where what people want to believe seems to be the opposite of reality.

For example, we hear many highly intelligent people in positions of the highest influence casually dismissing farming as being less important than it used to be because, as a money maker it has been overtaken by other “businesses”, such as the tourist industry. I listen to comments of this kind, and look around at fields which are full of animals, and others, which will soon be full of crops, and wonder if there is something wrong with my eyesight. Food may be very cheap these days, but, have we got our priorities right if we value the services of other businesses more highly than the farmers who produce the food we eat? We can do without most things – including tourism – but we cannot do without food, and isn’t it our well ordered agriculture which makes our land fit for tourism anyway?

I understand that the main reason for the present plight of British farming is the effect that superstores have had in forcing farm prices down to ridiculous levels. I find it difficult to believe that this was the deliberate intention of the the last Conservative government when they adopted the policy of encouraging superstores, although I have heard a senior official of the Environment Agency say, at a meeting, that the government stopped doing routine maintenance of the main rivers, because it was no longer important to prevent the flooding of farm land, as the decision had been taken to abandon the policy of making the UK self-sufficient in terms of food production. A report suggests that full main river maintenance and cleansing ended in about 1985.

This brings me to my next point. Now we are approaching the European Parliamentary elections, we shall no doubt be reminded, as we usually are before all elections, that there is only one political party which can be regarded as the true champion of the countryside.

Well, perhaps there may be something wrong with my eyesight, but when I look at the countryside, I don’t see a huge leisure theme park: I see acres of food producing farm land, and wonder which political party has the best policies for looking after the people who tend it. I see the Labour Party which receives huge donations from Sainsburys, and the Conservatives, who have very close connections with Tesco. I also see the LibDems, who are not the prisoners of any big retailing business. So, should we be surprised if the Tories have no policies to help farmers deal with the superstores; Labour actually want to give even more concessions to superstores, and the LibDems are the only major political party which wants to bring them to account?

We don’t have any policy objections to superstores in principle: what we do object to is unfair trading by superstores. Our Rural Futures policy document has many admirable policies for the countryside, including the consideration of a one-off tax on superstore profits to be recycled back to farm incomes, and the renegotiation, strengthening and enforcement of a code of practice with suitable sanctions to ensure fair trading between farmers and superstores.

There is a story that, when the Council Tax was introduced, every farm house was automatically put into Band “H”. Now, farm incomes are so low that council tax has become a serious issue for many farmers. Everybody knows that LibDems want to replace the council tax with a local income tax, but what do the Conservatives say? According to Michael Howard, the council tax is about as fair a local tax as any can be.

Then there is the defence of traditional rural sports such as fox hunting. The Tories are not alone in this: Lembit Opik, the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrat MPs, is joint chairman of the “Middle Way” group of MPs which wants to keep fox hunting by regulating it.

And finally, there is the Euro issue. Now, I know that, as soon as I mention the dreaded “E” word, it will be treated like blasphemy, and there will be such a howl of protest as may fill your letters column for the next 12 months! Suffice to say that on 20th January 2003 the NFU Council voted by a majority of 58 to 11 that UK farming would be better off with the Euro than without it. Now I also know how little credibility the NFU has with many farmers, but, with a majority of that size, I would have thought that there is at least a possibility that the countryside might benefit from monetary union.

I’m not suggesting the LibDem Party is perfect – no political party ever is. I only ask readers to study our Rural Futures paper on our WebSite before judging our record on countryside issues.

NB This article was not published because the Gazette thought it was too political. See "Introduction" for my up to date views on farming policy - they haven't changed much since I left the LibDem Group