David Handley I will not be lining up to help this time

THERE are four words which represent an unmistakable sign that the dairy industry is going through one of those particularly rough patches which have punctuated its history over the last 30 years; one of those occasions where simple, hopeless chaos is overlaid by genuine fears for its survival.

The words are ‘we need your help’ and they are generally spoken down the telephone by a senior NFU official.

Never mind that he or she routinely slags off Farmers For Action as a disorganised rabble of trouble-makers: when crisis looms all that is forgotten and suddenly FFA is flavour of the month.

I had such a call recently from an official with whom I have enjoyed, shall we say, some lively exchanges and some sharply defined differences of opinion in the last few years and who, I have no doubt, generally talks about FFA in the same disparaging tones as his colleagues around the table.

I have a very good memory, particularly of those numerous occasions when suddenly NFU officials have turned on the charm and assured us that – despite having slagged us off mercilessly for months – FFA is an organisation they really would like to work with so why don’t we pop round for a meeting because there is this particular problem.

And – largely because I believe in giving everyone the benefit of the doubt – we have generally gone along with it and found that we are being asked to stand outside dairy depots all night, we are being asked to stand in rainy supermarket car parks giving out leaflets, we are being asked to occupy the trenches in the frontline while the generals sit around the table in Stoneleigh assuring us they are with us to a man.

But when that pressure has led to official intervention and an invitation for discussions with industry leaders or government on a way forward, suddenly FFA has been dropped like a hot brick.

We have immediately been relegated once again to the status of a barely-controlled mob with no worthwhile opinions to offer anyone on any subject.

We haven’t been invited in for the lunch, as though someone has whispered to the chief executive or the minister’s special adviser that we haven’t yet mastered the skill of using a knife and fork and would probably keep our caps on, so we might be a bit of an embarrassment.

Down the years I have been stabbed in the back this way so many times there’s barely room for another knife to be inserted.

So no, I won’t be acceding to any request to join the NFU in any joint enterprise. I won’t be rolling up my sleeves and shovelling coal down with the stokers while the NFU travels Sovereign Class.

And I certainly won’t be signing up to and supporting any suggestion from the NFU that the way out of the current pit is to start culling British cattle to reduce supply and get the market back in balance.

For one thing that is a particularly stupid course which risks causing a shortage which will be filled by more imports.

But mainly because of a recent article in the farming press which questioned the dairy industry leaders in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland about their proposals for getting the industry if not back onto its feet than at least into a kneeling position.

And which revealed the utterly ludicrous situation whereby all four had different ideas as to how to achieve it.

An example, on a huge and shameful scale, of how British farmers’ historic inability to compromise, to agree and to cooperate has been the underlying factor which has constantly held back progress at all levels.

Given the picture thus painted, getting involved at all with any joint enterprise that might be cobbled together is the last thing I need or intend to do so I shall be declining the invitation.

As the great Groucho Marx put it: “I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me as a member.”

When crisis looms all that is forgotten and suddenly FFA is flavour of the month