Peter Hill praises the EU

When he was editor of the Daily Express, Peter Hill oversaw a drop in circulation from 851,199 to 623,603 copies per day in just over 7 years. His reign was marked by Diana conspiracy theories, countless libellous claims in articles about Madeleine McCann, and lots of nastiness about immigrants and Muslims.

It also ran many stories about the EU. On 8 January this year, the paper produced a Get Britain Out of the EU pull-out. Hill wrote the introduction, which stated the EU was a 'dictatorship':

the traditional rights and freedoms of the peoples of Europe have been systematically swept away with a ruthless efficiency that would have been the envy of Napoleon and Hitler.

Hill added:

I defy anyone to produce one single act or law of the EU and the European Court that has actually benefited Britain.

'Anyone'.

Well, since leaving the editor's chair, Hill has been writing a weekly column in the Express. Two days ago, he turned his attention to an EU plan to ensure bacon that includes more than 5% water is labelled as such (current UK legislation sets the limit at 10%). Even the Telegraph and Mail thought this was quite a good idea.

But did Hill think this plan was yet another hallmark of the 'EU dictatorship'? Not quite:

Just occasionally the EU gets it right and one subject on which it is consistently sound is food standards.

For years British food suppliers have hidden behind elaborate secrecy laws, enabling them to get away with pretty much any old rubbish...

Now the EU says that bacon producers will have to rename their product "bacon with added water" if it contains more than five per cent of water. Fair enough...

All this injecting of meat products with numerous chemicals and water couldn't possibly have happened in the good old days when our meat actually tasted of something.

It's nasty British factory farming methods that are responsible, among which pork and bacon are the worst. Long live EU food standards.