Hogg takes a farm trip

Date: 03/10/1996

Killarney's informal meeting of agriculture ministers was a riot in more ways than one.

Not only was Commissioner Franz Fischler air-lifted out of the place to avoid missing his plane because of demonstrating farmers blocking the roads, but the wife of the UK's beef ban-beleaguered Agriculture Minister Douglas Hogg also decided things were a getting a little too hot to handle.

Sarah Hogg, formerly UK Prime Minister John Major's economics guru in Downing Street, had gone to Killarney with her husband, taking full advantage of the 'informal' status of the occasion.

But she decided things were much fiercer than anything at Number Ten, and asked to be escorted away early from the hotel where the meeting was under siege, apparently fearing for her personal safety.

As it turned out it was her husband who needed the escort - left to his own devices, he almost fell headlong into a peat bog while rushing through the mud to greet an alleged Conservative voter while on a visit to a farm.

“Until now Douglas has only put his foot in it,” commented one source.

“But this time he was nearly up to his neck in it.”