Can we raid the EEC food mountains?
MARGARET Thatcher wanted to use the European “butter mountain” and other stockpiles to refresh Britain’s supplies.
Shortly after becoming Prime Minister in 1979, she learned Labour had let stores for use in war or civil emergency to be rundown.
Then Agriculture Minister Peter Walker said: “The previous Government raided this larder and did not replenish it.”
Mrs Thatcher wrote of the EEC stockpiles: “As most of the finance for them comes from us, can we not claim title to some of it without having to pay?”
This did not happen and within two years Tory policy was to sell stocks as part of privatisation.