Despite the recent media focus on reforming the CAP and reducing agricultural spending - as one of the trade offs in the mega budget deal being brokered by Tony Blair - I notice that the press has given relatively little coverage to a major step forward in CAP reform achieved last week, namely the reform of the sugar market. This amounts to a 36% price reduction in sugar, bringing in market forces to play in this too-protected area, a significant budgetary saving and an end to the dumping of our sugar surpluses on the Third World.

If the government was really any good at spin doctoring, it would be shouting this from the rooftops. It amounts to another major step in CAP reform on top of those achieved already in recent years.

Sometimes out media and our ministers fail even to point out, let alone take credit for, the major reforms already achieved in the CAP!