"The fate of agriculture is intimately bound up with the fate of democracy
itself....no civilisation has ever survived the loss of its agricultural
base" concludes Dr North at the end of a most worrying, informed and
penetrating survey of the legislation that has led to the situation British
rural communities now find themselves in.

Dr North knows intimately the ways of successive bureaucracies who have
managed, by a combination of well meaning bungling and carelessly imposed
regulatory burdens, to put British farming at a disadvantage. Although known
to be an energetic and witty Eurosceptic, Dr North does not lay very much of
the blame for the plight of British agriculture at the feet of the EU
Commission. It is, to our shame, Britain itself that has so mismanaged food
scares, EU regulation, the CAP and - especially - the recent animal
diseases.

The book is both depressing and exhilarating. Dr North is under no illusions
about the many sad mistakes to have hit the farming industry but he also has
sensible suggestions for avoiding complete catastrophe. He writes in an
accessible manner which avoids any kind of sensationalism. Far from jumping
on bandwagons, he looks closely and critically at the many conspiracy
theories of recent months and debunks them, seeing much more to worry about
in the narrow self-interests of scientists, big business and empire building
government departments. Criticisms of current farming practices are looked
at very coolly, as are the complaints about unfairness from the
supermarkets. Even MAFF/DEFRA, the department who so grotesquely mishandled
disease control, is dealt with fairly - although he pulls no punches when
looking at, for example, the dirty dealing that led to the loss of so many
British slaughterhouses.

If anyone still wonders why so many thousands of concerned people in Britain
have been calling out for a proper public inquiry into the government's
handling of the foot and mouth crisis they need only read this book. They
will then see the foot and mouth crisis to have been just the latest in a
long line of tragic errors - a final straw that cannot be ignored.

I never received this book from the used book dealer so I can't rate it or write a review of it.Please remove it from my sharedpurchases. Thank you.

If their was a "0" rating, I would give it.

This early novel by Patterson is far inferior to his later works, but I think it stands on its own in kind of a predatory or sadistic way. The whole concept of hostages being negotiated and aired as a t.v. special is all too frighteningly real, considering the nation's obsession with so-called reality television. But the premise is intriguing, and the story has some tense and riveting scenes. My main complaint is that within the novel, John Damone tells Stacy that "the man I hired killed him. Lord just brought it up again.." So i figured Stacy was in on it, but obviously she wasn't. This little confusing issue kind of squelched my overall enthusiasm for the novel, but even then Patterson was writing awesomely, giving us a glimpse of what he's come to do best---trial novels!
RECOMMENDED.