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Pilot arrested in cannabis probe

A pilot was arrested for suspected drug smuggling yesterday after 20 kilos of herbal cannabis was found near where his light aircraft made an emergency landing. However, children who have never eaten beef might be safer if they are never fed it, Dr Stephen Dealler told MPs.
“I stopped eating beef in 1988, but my statistics suggest that for people who have kept on eating it, there is no advantage now in stopping,” Dr Dealler said.”The added risk of continuing is very small.” He added that giving up beef might halve the risk.However, he added: “I can’t show statistically that it’s safe for children.” Dr Dealler and Dr Harash Narang, who claims to have developed a urine test for BSE and CJD in live cattle and humans, were giving evidence as independent scientists to a joint Commons Select Committee on agriculture and health.Dr Dealler’s also challenged many of the Government’s assumptions about the public health risk from “mad cow disease”, or BSE, and accused it of understating the number of cases.He warned too that if BSE can be passed to humans – a possibility recently admitted by the government – then “in the worst case” there might be millions of cases of CJD in Britain sometime in the next century, after incubation periods of up to 50 years.. Aren’t you going to have to do something as dramatic as that not to lose so many seats?Mr Mawhinney replied: “Let’s stay in the real world, can we? What you have just suggested.. is that we should dump the Prime Minister Don’t be ridiculous. That isn’t even worthy of any answer.”The exchange follows friction between Tory Central Office and No 10 over who is to blame for the by-election defeat, leading to suggestions from Mr Mawhinney that there should be a Cabinet reshuffle. However, Mr Major has discounted any idea of “ritual bloodletting”.. Adults cannot reduce their chances of developing the brain disorder CJD by stopping eating beef now, even if “mad cow disease” can be passed to humans, a leading independent scientist said yesterday, writes Charles Arthur.

The BBC interviewer said: “Now in 1990 you did something dramatic. You got rid of the poll tax you also got rid if Mrs Thatcher. He said: “The Prime Minister is wrong to say I want reckless and immediate cuts in spending and taxation.”Last autumn I did propose a costed programme of reduced growth in public spending in order to remove VAT on fuel and some other tax increases. John Major’s problems with former “bastards” in the Cabinet flared again last night when John Redwood angrily rebuked the Prime Minister for accusing him of promoting “reckless and silly” proposals for cutting public expenditure. The Government then decided to cut income tax by 1p instead.”Earlier, senior right-wingers criticised Brian Mawhinney, the Tory chairman, for an outburst in a BBC radio interview.Senior Tory backbenchers privately accused him of being unprofessional in his attack on interviewer Sue MacGregor – not least because he, rather than she, had raised the issue of “dumping the Prime Minister.”The clash with Ms MacGregor arose in a discussion on the popularity gap the Tories need to close between now and the general election. The row exposed tensions within the Tory high command in the wake of last Thursday’s defeat in the Staffordshire South East by-election as it emerged that John Major is ruling out both an early Cabinet reshuffle and a lurch to the tax-cutting agenda of the Tory right.
Mr Major said, in an effort to dismiss Labour accusations that he is leading his party to the right, that the calls for cuts in public expenditure by Mr Redwood, a champion of the right, were “reckless and silly”.Mr Redwood, who resigned from the Cabinet to challenge Mr Major for the leadership, hit back. Should legal aid be made available for detainees to conduct their own opinion polls? Any judge would throw them in the bin,” he said.Mr Howard is contesting the case, which continues today..

“Other children of 10?”He maintained Mr Howard had no right to consider petitions, some gathered by Jamie Bulger’s own family, calling for harsh minimum sentences. Of 22,630 letters received by the minister, 21,281 were Sun coupons urging the imposition of whole life sentences.He said they were not expert evidence but merely representations from one section of the community.”What are the consequences of that. Nor was there any challenge to the need to detain the children for as long as was necessary to protect the public – however long that proved to be.He told Lord Justice Pill and Mr Justice Newman that what was at issue was that Mr Howard’s tariff decision unlawfully centred on “retribution and deterrence”.Mr Fitzgerald argued they had no place for children as young as 10, who were only just past the age of criminality – an age far lower that most other countries.It ignored the fact that the children would mature and change and ignored statistics which showed that children rarely killed.He knew of no other cases this century where a child killer had been as young as Venables and Thompson and one as young as 14 emerged only about once every five years.”It’s quite clear that this sort of crime is committed because of some aberration or problem in the young child.”"Who are you deterring?” asked Mr Fitzgerald. The boys should be entitled to a regular review of their detention, he argued.After recent clashes between Mr Howard and top judges over crime and punishment, the QC argued that sentencing was a matter for the judiciary – not the executive.Mr Fitzgerald was launching a judicial review on behalf of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson of the Home Secretary’s decision.