Last week, the European Commission agreed to lift the EU’s ban on selling genetically modified food for human consumption by approving the sale of Bt-11 sweetcorn (and there’s a brand name that’ll have tins flying off the shelves).

Much news coverage of this has been slightly misleading as this change in the rules does not affect the planting of GM crops, only their sale. One of the principle arguments against the growth of GM crops is that they may "infect" organic produce and thereby reduce choice for those consumers who wish to be able to purchase "uncontaminated", "natural" produce. But, by the same argument, those who wish to buy GM should be able to do so. GM sweetcorn will be labelled as such and those who are concerned about its effects should avoid it. At the risk of sounding like a free marketeer (and I don’t mean Porthos), if consumers don’t buy GM crops, there will be no point in companies’ producing them. If they do sell, it’s because consumers are happy to eat them, in which case they should be allowed to.

I will be boycotting this Bt-11 sweetcorn myself, as I don’t like sweetcorn.

Who decides these things? Clearly more intangible concepts should have colours. So from now on:

• turquoise is the international colour of itchiness
• beige is the international colour of amnesia
• puce is the international colour of tweeness
• grey is the international colour of onomatopoeia

A fun game for all the family that would make any journey fly by at half the speed.

Monday’s opinion poll in the Guardian shows that a large proportion of people think the Prime Minister should stand down before the next election. This isn’t surprising: the Government misled the electorate over tuition fees, continues to support the Tories’ Council Tax system, and, most significantly, backed America’s deeply divisive war in Iraq.

But Tony Blair’s party won only 40.7% of the vote in the 2001 general election. So, even then, 59.3% of voters didn’t want him to be Prime Minister (and that’s not including the Labour Party voters who didn’t want him as their leader). Take a poll of the general population and you should expect to find that most people don’t support the Government – not because they have withdrawn their support since 2001, but because the Government never had the support of the majority of the country. Even in 1997, when Labour swept to power on a legendary tidal wave of popular support, only 43.2% of voters backed them – 56.8% were against.

Although I would like to see MPs elected by a system of proportional representation, that’s not my main point here. Rather, it’s that opinion polls showing that a majority of people (and the 46% in the Guardian isn’t even a majority) oppose either Tony Blair or the Government should be taken with a pinch of salt, since the Labour Party was opposed by a majority of voters at the last General Election and still runs the country. More significant are voting intention polls and polls establishing the public’s views on specific individual issues, although even with these it’s important to know what questions were asked. But revealing that the PM doesn’t have the backing of most of the population isn’t news.

That’s the plain English heading of the letter I received from the Returning Officer for Leeds City Council today confirming that I am now a candidate in June’s all-up local elections.

I will therefore have to be less flippant and blog a bit about some of the issues facing Leeds.

However, the Eurovision semi-final is on BBC THREE at the moment so that will have to be later.