Look away Eurosceptics. Those meddling Brussels bureaucrats have let you down again and are not going to ban the sale of eggs by the dozen.
To the disappointment of red-top newspapers and irate contributors to talk radio, the European Union confirmed yesterday that MEPs had not voted to do away with a cherished feature of Great British life.
In an emergency statement, the European Parliament said: "Selling eggs by the dozen will not be illegal under the terms of the amendments adopted to EU food labelling proposals. Labels will still be able to indicate the number of items in a pack – whether it's eggs, bread rolls or fish fingers."
While dismaying EU critics who had pounced on reports suggesting it was banning common-sense labelling, the news will put at rest the minds of shoppers facing the spectre of having to guess how many food items were in cartons containing a dozen or half a dozen eggs.
The Great Egg Scare – which had echoes of the hysteria that greeted Edwina Currie's remarks in 1988 that most British egg production was infected with salmonella – began with an exclusive in The Mail on Sunday.
On Sunday its front-page story was headlined: "EU to ban selling eggs by the dozen: Shopkeepers' fury as they are told all food must be weighed and sold by the kilo."
The story began: "British shoppers are to be banned from buying eggs by the dozen under new regulations approved by the European Parliament. For the first time, eggs and other products such as oranges and bread rolls will be sold by weight instead of by the number contained in a packet."
According to the paper, MEPs had ended a British opt-out from EU rules forbiding the selling of goods by quantity, meaning that instead of packaging telling shoppers a box contains six eggs, it would show the weight the eggs in grams.
Promising a fight-back from the Food Standards Agency, the paper reported: "It could be the first test of David Cameron's pre-Election promise to stand up for Britain's interests in the EU."
The Federation of Bakers warned, though, that it might be too late to save the sale of "six bread rolls".
drive from www.independent.co.uk