Ellee Seymour

Conservative MEPs led by the erudite Struan Stevenson will take on the might of the Spanish fishing fleet this week to ban the cruel practice of removing fins from the Mediterranean blue shark.

The World Conservation Council have announced that blue sharks are now an endangered species facing extinction because of the Chinese’s love of shark fin soup, which dates back 2,000 years.

Unfortunately, Disney does not share the same environmental scruples, thinking only in terms of mega bucks, and have refused to take it off the menu at their Hong Kong theme park.

A new international Shark Alliance group is hoping the Europe Union will end the barbaric practice of shark finning - slicing off a shark’s fins and discarding the body at sea. Numbers have declined by 80% over the last few decades. Scientists estimate that as many as 60 million sharks are killed each year, most of them destined for China for use in shark fin soup.

Fishing spokesman Straun said:

“The regulations need to be tightened. The Spanish need to recognise their responsibilities. They’re filling soup bowls in Chinese restaurants by killing one of the main species of European shark.”

Let’s hope we pass on this strong message to Disney too, they should not be permitted to trade in ways that threaten our endangered species.

I fail to understand why Disney should dish this up at weddings anyway as, despite reports of it being an aphrodisiac, it could instead cause male infertility, hardly the desired aim…

Did he mean it, or didn’t he? And did the presence of Ed Balls induce sacked Home Secretary Charles Clarke into admitting he was wrong about saying those nasty things about Gordon Brown.

Clarke effectively conceded that his savage personal attack on the Chancellor had been unhelpful to the party. And he acknowledged that people, including himself, had behaved in “not the most best and advised ways”.

However, he did not retract his words, just said that they would have been best left unsaid. That hardly improves matters, the damage has already been done. I wonder what has been said between the two men since.

Clarke was speaking last night at a fringe event hosted by the Fabian Society and the Observer at the Labour conference where he was flanked by Brown’s close ally Ed Balls - was this a mere coincidence, or had Clarke been told to publicly put matters straight, but he didn’t quite manage it?

Chris Mole MP, however, has not have second thoughts about signing the letter calling for Blair’s early resignation and is quoted in his local paper today as saying he has “no regrets”.

I’ve just done a quick trawl of the Labour blogs and the official conference blog seems quite dull, just an interactive press release, Tom Watson has launched a new site and has had enough of being asked where to get a curry, Kerron Cross is not bothering, so Antonia Bance’s site is definitely the best read to date, unless you know differently…