What meaningless waffle; surely a future PM.(JUSTIN MCDONALD'S DIARY)

MONDAY

* Maggie and I at a very washed out Royal Show, but plenty of high profile speakers, not least new DEFRA Secretary, Hilary "Vegetarian-For-The-Past-35-Years" Benn.

Mr Benn is a rising man in New Labour and he showed why, with phrases like: "I have good conversation with meat processors already, and if we work on the basis of mutual respect, I respect farmers immediately, so we are going to get on just fine."

What meaningless patronising waffle. Surely a future PM.

Not to be outdone, Lib Dem leader, Menzies Campbell, turned up to introduce his new set of rural policies, which seemed to be about positive discrimination in favour of middle-sized farmers. Sir Ming, it seems, doesn't like very big or very small farmers.

He said it was time to start clawing back money from the "CAP millionaires" and cutting out payments to the smallest producers. Maggie said it was no wonder Mr Campbell was so low down in the polls. He should be more careful about proposing to cut the small farmers' subsidies with the Lib Dems being so reliant on rural votes in the south west.

Last, but not least, comes John Gummer for the Tories, who, tomorrow, is forecast to announce his conversion to the science of global warming. (He has obviously learnt his lesson from his time at MAFF during the BSE crisis--if there's a scare story, be scared.) Mr Gummer will commit the Tories to turning farmers into park keepers, food growers, flood controllers, and carbon emission reversers. As Maggie put it: "Gosh, darling, if David Cameron ever gets in we are going to be busy."