Germany undermines Euro launch

THE big news from Europe since the beginning of the year has undoubtedly been the arrival of the euro and the abolition of such famous currencies as the franc, the mark and the peseta.

I am not a supporter of British membership of the single currency and events since the launch of the euro have not persuaded me to change my mind. While it is quite true that any shopping trips on my parliamentary visits to Brussels and Strasbourg have gone smoothly, there is a world of difference between learning how to calculate in euros and joining the currency. By signing up, we would surrender control of our interest and exchange rates, and ultimately, I believe, our national levels of taxation.

But the fundamental principle behind the euro was that there would be no financial backsliding and countries would be being forbidden from running up high budget deficits which would undermine its stability. So what happens when Germany, formerly a model of financial rectitude, does just that? Instead of taking action, European bankers look away, do nothing and, as a result, damage the credibility of a strict counter-inflationary policy. It's not a good omen for the future and I remain convinced that Britain is better off staying out.

NORTH WEST NHS HORROR STORY

ONE of the disadvantages of the European Parliament is that the work does not involve the same personal contact with constituents I was used to as Bury South's MP.

But I was recently called on for assistance by a Stockport lady who had been waiting for more than two years for an operation. The saga culminated in the operation being cancelled twice on the same day in mid-January.

I wrote to the Health Secretary, Alan Milburn MP, and the hospital to express my horror at the situation, and the operation was performed later that week. I have now received an apology, but, really this another case of the NHS failing to deliver the level of care we expect.

Tony Blair, who coined that ghastly soundbite "24 hours to save the NHS" in 1997, must now be held to account for his bogus rhetoric -- and take full responsibility for the Government's abject failure to get a grip on the NHS.

MOORS MURDERER'S BOOK

I HAVE been campaigning for months against Moors Murderer Ian Brady publishing a book about serial killers called "The Gate's of Janus".

I wrote to the Government to point out that the law makes no provision to stop criminals writing books while incarcerated -- as Brady has done at Merseyside's Ashworth Hospital -- effectively cashing in on their notoriety.

He stands to make around £15,000 from his 10 per cent stake in all sales.

The issue was brought to me by a constituent asking if the European Parliament could stop the publication of "The Gate's of Janus". I had to tell him that this was not a responsibility of the European authorities in Brussels, but with Westminster.

So I contacted North West MP and Home Office Minister Keith Bradley, explaining my disgust that someone as evil and unrepentant as Brady should be allowed to profit from his infamy. I was particularly concerned as Victim Support charities, such as the Merseyside-based "Support After Murder and Manslaughter", had said it was upsetting Brady's victims' families and disrupting their recovery.

I'm glad to say Keith has responded to my plea, agreeing that the law on criminals publishing books is "limited in its scope". He wrote: "Where criminal memoirs are concerned, we are looking at ways in which we can prevent both profiting directly from criminal activities, but also the more complex situation when the gain is not from the criminal activities themselves but from the notoriety of the crime itself and the perpetrator."

Fine words -- now let's see some action.

LABOUR'S FRIDGE FIASCO

THE NEW Year saw the introduction of a European directive making it compulsory to strip out ozone-depleting CFC foam from all unwanted fridges.

The Environment Minister and Oldham MP Michael Meacher signed up to this directive in 1998 thinking that it would only apply to industrial fridges, not realising it covered domestic fridges as well.

Because of this howling blunder, the Government has done nothing to prepare for these new regulations. As a result, there is complete chaos. There are no processing plants in the UK capable of taking CFC foam out of fridges, an estimated 6500 fridges are being stockpiled each week with nowhere to treat them and each local authority is faced with a massive bill to collect and store unwanted fridges. Ironically, one of the biggest fridge mountains is in Mr Meacher's own constituency!

Moreover, with electrical retailers now refusing to take old fridges in exchange for new appliances, there is a greater temptation for unscrupulous people to resort to fly tipping.

We have already seen how the high cost of disposing vehicles can lead to the menace of abandoned cars. There is now a serious concern we will see the same pattern with fridges. As well as being unsightly and environmentally unsafe, dumped fridges pose a danger to the public, particularly children. And this has all been caused by a ludicrous error betraying the increasingly familiar incompetence at the heart of New Labour.