Here's an opportunity for all the Leavers

The programme I saw was BBC local news and there is currently a campaign to bring Stilton cheese back to the place it was first made.
Daniel Defoe was there in 1724 before it was ever marketed by your innkeeper. I found this.
Daniel Defoe in his 1724 work A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain notes, "We pass'd Stilton, a town famous for cheese, which is call'd our English Parmesan, and is brought to table with the mites or maggots round it, so thick, that they bring a spoon with them for you to eat the mites with, as you do the cheese."

MaizieD
The new rules support UK Government priorities of economic growth and deficit reduction by making the public procurement process faster, less costly, and more effective for business and procurers alike. They represent an excellent outcome from the UK’s extensive negotiations in Brussels.

The reason I dislike it is the yes it cut out red tape, but it opened all our public services to bids and subsequent contracts from companies outside UK who, often provide a poorer level of service using employees who have poorer employment rights either here or in their home countries. UK Organisations have often been unable to retain contracts due to their norm being higher pay and pension benefits for staff.

Oh dear-YUK!!!!! But you've proved the point Chesnut!!?

Whatever Defoe might have said the fact remains that Stilton cheese was not made at Stilton.

From my' History of Stilton Cheese' (1995). The author lived in the area for 60 years and spent years studying the development of and history of the cheese.

From his book:

Where did the cheese come from? It could have been made locally in small quantities. The land to the east of Stilton was fenland, totally unsuitable for rearing sheep and cattle. To the west were ills, unsuitable as grazing land because of the underlying nature of the soil which produced poor quality grass. It was principally a sheep grazing area. A ready trade link, however,existed with the cheese producing district of east Leicestershire.

To summarise:

1) The land in the immediate vicinity of Stilton was not suitable for dairy cattle.
2) Milk was made on the farm from excess milk from the dairy cattle. Therefore, no dairy cattle, no cheesemaking on the farms around Stilton. No-one in the early 18th C (when Defoe was writing) was going to specially transport their milk from a distance to Stilton in order for it to be made into cheese. On the other hand, cheeses were easier to transport.
3) Stilton was an excellent centre for the marketing of cheese because of its position on the Great North Road. Because it had several inns for the accommodation of travellers they would naturally have cheese made in the surrounding areas for sale. So Defoe would have been offered the cheese for which Stilton was famous because it was marketed there. To think that it was made there would be an easy mistake to make. Though he didn't actually say it was made there, just that it was famous for the cheese.

3) Far from being 'first marketed in the 1830s at the Bell Inn' my author notes The first published reference to a cheese called 'Stilton' is made in William Stukely's 'Itinerarium Curiosa' 1722. That it was a seasoned product was confirmed by Prof. Richard Bradley in his survey of 1727 when he refers to the famous Stilton cheese being offered at the Blue Bell Inn in the town. In addition.....Pope, in 1738, speaks of it in a poem that I'm not going to quote. Not to mention Defoe mentioning it in his book in 1724. If he'd actually been to Stilton,(there being some question of whether he actually did visit all the places he wrote about) he would have been offered the cheese at whatever place he stayed at, most likely an inn. Stilton's inns are very old as they were established to serve travellers on the Great North Road, an extremely ancient road dating back to the Romans in many places.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stilton

Whoever did the rather sketchy 'research' for the BBC programme didn't dig deep enough.

From 'The History of Stilton Cheese' again:
Legend has it that a certain amount of secrecy was involved with regard to the location of the source of supply of the unique blue veined cream cheese, market exclusively from the town of Stilton. The leading retailers implied that it was made in the town and surrounding district. The travellers who visited the town and considered that the cheese was made locally must have been highly gullible town and city dwellers! Where were the dairies capable of producing the quantities that were being offered for sale?

Phew!

What point has Chestnut proved, exactly?
I have no idea whether the cheese in question was ever made in Stilton, but what I can definitely say is that the sentence "We pass'd Stilton, a town famous for cheese" does not actually say, or even imply, that the cheese was made there. Yes, it certainly states that it was sold / served there, but nothing more!

Sorry - just to be accurate, my last sentence relates to another part of the quote, which I didn't copy and paste.

She's trying to prove that the nasty old EU won't let cheese actually made at Stilton (if there is any made at Stilton it's of very recent date due to the factors pointed out in the 'History') be designated as 'Stilton' cheese.

I can't work out if I've spent a fascinating couple of hours trawling through said 'History' and my copy of Defoe's Travels, or completely wasted my time

The campaign:
Stilton Cheese ban
Whatever the history might be the fact remains that the EU has banned Stilton village from selling Stilton cheese:
The cheese made in the village can't legally be called Stilton - The Bell Inn in Stilton, was forced to call a blue-veined cheese they made ‘Bells Blue’ instead of Stilton in 2013, due to the EU ruling.

MaizieD - I quoted the cheese ban as one small example of the EU interfering in things which have nothing to do with them!

OK, let's bring it down to basics. The point being, WTF has it got to do with the EU what UK localities and regions call locally made cheese? Seriously, we are/were paying them billions of pounds every year to pass such stupid diktats as this?

Opal - exactly.

MaizieD - thanks for posting all that research! There does seem to be a lot of confusion over the origin of Stilton if the BBC are interviewing someone who says it was first made in Stilton in 1722! ?

It's not EU dictats. It's arisen from the producers of the various 'named' foodstuffs who wanted to protect their 'brand' and traditional production methods from being copied and undercut, or losing their reputation for quality and authenticity, by cheap imitations. We have copyright and trademark laws; this is just similar.

Such a stupid thing to get annoyed about. If you were the producer of a well known premium product, such as Harris Tweed, Melton Mowbray pork pies, Worcester sauce, etc. would you want your product's reputation affected by imitations and your prices undercut? Shouldn't the consumer be confident that they are getting the real thing, not a copy made with heaven knows what ingredients and by unknown processes?

According to the UK government website we will set up our own name protection scheme, so I suspect that whoever is lobbying for this cheese said to be made at Stilton probably won't get any joy from them, either.

www.gov.uk/guidance/protecting-food-and-drink-names-if-theres-no-brexit-deal

if the BBC are interviewing someone who says it was first made in Stilton in 1722!

No TV news item is ever going to be researched in depth because there isn't time to find the information and find the best experts. The person they found was not a good source...

A serious question - I don't know the answer - who initially asked for Stilton cheese to have this protected geographical status, its UK producers or members of other EU states? Similarly, who actually opposed the town of Stilton being allowed to use that name for their cheeses, other local UK producers or producers in other parts of the EU.

In other words, depending on the answer, is the EU wrongly blamed for this ruling (and many more similar ones) anyway?

Logically, I can't imagine why any other EU country would have pushed for this protection of an English cheese in the first place, with or without the exclusion of the town of Stilton, or expected to benefit in any way, which suggests to me that this ruling is most likely 100% made in England then merely endorsed/formalized by the EU.
If that is the case, I doubt it will change, unless the Government decides that it needs to make a deliberate show of altering 'controversial' things following Brexit, knowing that the public widely blame the EU for them.

That's my personal take on it, but I stand to be corrected if I'm wrong.

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself.

The Stilton exchange has been quite interesting to read. Can't say I have ever seen a 'Bells Blue' cheese though.

I liked this musing on the EU:
”We are leaving the failing EU because we can fail just as well on our own”.

The key words in that link to the Stilton campaign are "Under EU law, Stilton, can only currently be produced in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, where it is thought the cheese originated ."

Those framing this legislation probably went deeper into the subject than a superficial reading of the works of Daniel Defoe, who may never have visited Stilton at all and had no special knowledge of the making of cheese for widespread sale, from large quantities of milk..

Here's the Wikipedia page about the EU PDO scheme.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_and_traditional_specialities_in_the_European_Union

I would imagine (though I can't find the information) that the scheme, which was set up in 1992, was devised at the request of member states who wished to protect the integrity of their regional products. I think this because 'the EU' isn't a discrete entity and doesn't (can't) just initiate things at will. The Commission has to be asked to initiate something by interested parties. The idea that it comes up with silly ideas at the drop of a hat and with no input from the member states is just plain unrealistic.

Application for PDO is made by the producers of the product.

An application for a PDO or a PGI is first made to the authorities of the relevant Member State. It is judged by the Member State against the criteria in the Regulation and, if found to be acceptable, forwarded to the European Commission for final approval. Applications are published at both the national and Community stages of examination, and third parties can object to proposed PDOs or PGIs which they feel would harm their business. A recurrent objection is that the proposed denomination is a generic term for the product in question: generic names cannot be registered but, once registered, the denominations are protected from genericisation. Hence Cheddar cheese was deemed to be a generic name, but the PDO "West Country farmhouse Cheddar cheese" was allowed.[8] Feta was deemed not to have become generic, and was registered as a PDO to the disappointment of cheesemakers outside of Greece.
(From the Wikipedia article)

EU law doesn't come out of thin air.

Drafting EU law
Before the Commission proposes new initiatives it assesses the potential economic, social and environmental consequences that they may have. It does this by preparing 'Impact assessments' which set out the advantages and disadvantages of possible policy options.

The Commission also consults interested parties such as non-governmental organisations, local authorities and representatives of industry and civil society. Groups of experts give advice on technical issues. In this way, the Commission ensures that legislative proposals correspond to the needs of those most concerned and avoids unnecessary red tape.

Citizens, businesses and organisations can participate in the consultation procedure via the website Public consultations.

National parliaments can formally express their reservations if they feel that it would be better to deal with an issue at national rather than EU level.

europa.eu/european-union/eu-law/decision-making/procedures_en

At the moment if we see the CE mark we know that no matter where the item was made it will conform to certain standards. The Kite Mark doesn't apply to everything. The Kite Mark is also voluntary whereas the CE isn't.

Apologies all as I got minimum wage wrong! But I still believe many of the EU directives have kept standards higher than they may have been.

Thank you MaizieD.
What you have found and pasted backs up what I imagined had to be the case: An application for a PDO or a PGI is first made to the authorities of the relevant Member State. It is judged by the Member State against the criteria in the Regulation and, if found to be acceptable, forwarded to the European Commission for final approval.

In other words, we in the UK have clearly initiated regulations that so many readily blame the EU for, a belief that Boris et al are only too keen to encourage to further their own aims.
Not that detractors will ever acknowledge this and stop blaming the EU, I bet!

varian and chestnut
The tampon tax is on the way out.
It was discussed in 2018 and was on schedule to be gone by 2022.

Defra has refused the application for cheese made in Stlton to be called Stilton - not the EU. I thought we were supposed to be respecting facts.

I hate Stilton