Downing Street and ministers were forced on to the defensive as the Prince appeared to single-handedly wreck their efforts to calm fears over GM food and crops.
Just four days after Tony Blair accused the media of whipping up “hysteria” over the issue, the Prince mounted a detailed critique of claims that the biotechnology was safe.Prince Charles is also to meet Dr Arpad Pusztai, the scientist whose research first sparked a furore over GM crops and who has since been denounced by Jack Cunningham, the minister charged with overseeing the science.And Mr Blair faces further embarrassment today. A former Labour minister, Joan Ruddock, is due to call for a five-year moratorium on the commercial release of modified crops. She believes the large companies involved in the technology are not acting with public consent.The Prince’s intervention, in an article in yesterday’s Daily Mail, warned against the “Orwellian” dangers of the science and criticised the “unprecedented and unethical” situation in which farmers’ crops could be cross-pollinated with GM crops “since bees and the wind don’t obey any sort of rules – voluntary or statutory”.He also ridiculed as “emotional blackmail” the Government’s claim that GM techniques could help prevent Third World food shortages.Both Downing Street and Michael Meacher, an Environment minister, said they welcomed the article.”We are perfectly content for the Prince of Wales to make a contribution to a debate which, as you know, we are seeking to encourage,” the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said.Mr Meacher insisted there was no intention of “forcing GM foods down people’s throats” and rules governing them were “stringent and tight”.Meanwhile, Ms Ruddock’s speech, to the Royal Bath and West Show in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, looks likely to open a split within Labour, where many are thought to have serious doubts on the issue.. EVEN THE official advice is confusing: new phone numbers were introduced yesterday for 10 million people – so please note them down, and do nothing Unless you’re a business, in which case act immediately. That was the suggestion of Oftel, the telecoms watchdog, for the cities affected – London, Belfast, Cardiff, Coventry, Portsmouth and Southampton.
The old phone numbers will still work until 22 April but meanwhile, businesses are trying to establish how quickly they will need to change their letterheads, auto-dial faxes and call-barring systems.The man in the phonebox in the street, meanwhile, is probably just frantic. The new numbers will work now, but the potential for misdialling is huge because of the way the changes work.

It is not just the prefix to numbers which has changed – seven-digit numbers will become eight-digit numbers.For example, London’s 0171 and 0181 numbers, created just five years ago, are now both 020 but you will need to add a “7″ or an “8″ to the number accordingly. So you can now call The Independent on 0171 293 2000 or on 020 7293 2000 – but if you call from an 0171 number and dial 7293 2000, you will not get through.The Federation of Small Businesses, representing four million companies, is angry: “We estimate [the changes] will cost pounds 500 for someone working from home and pounds 2,000 for someone with a larger company. And if you think people here are confused, just imagine what it’s like for those with customers abroad.”The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) admitted yesterday it was pressure from its members which has led to the renumbering.An Oftel spokesman said: “We would encourage the public not to start using the new numbers until next Easter.”Sue Arnold,Review, page 4. A SUCCESSFUL London-based commodities broker is to be deported today to Nigeria, despite the fact that he has no home or friends in the West African state. Ben James, 30, who has lived in Britain since he was enrolled in a private school at the age of 14, was yesterday taken by the private security company Group 4 to a detention centre near Gatwick airport.
Mike O’Brien, the Immigration minister, has been unmoved by representations on behalf of Nigerian-born Mr James by his MP, Tessa Jowell, the Health minister, and Sir Herman Ouseley, chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, who became personally interested in the case.Sir Herman said last night: “I am personally disgusted that any individual can be treated in this manner and I am completely devastated by such crass inhumanity and arrogance.”Some of Mr James’ supporters believe the decision is linked to the election last week of a civilian government in Nigeria, which was re-admitted to the Commonwealth last weekend.Last week, in an almost identical case to Mr James’, immigration officials deported Kiki Gil, 26, a Nigerian-born woman who had been living in Britain since the age of 10 and who is married to a BBC sound engineer.Mrs Gil was put on a plane to Lagos without even being allowed to pack her bags or say goodbye to her husband.Yesterday, Mr James’ supporters were desperately trying to persuade the Home Office to allow him time to take some possessions with him.A spokesman for Ms Jowell’s office said: “We have done everything we possibly can but the Home Office are simply not budging.

We are asking the Home Office to delay so that he can get some personal effects together.”Mr James’ vicar, the Reverend Malcolm Johnson, who was with him when he was arrested when making a routine monthly appearance at a London police station yesterday, said: “Ben is a model person and a very impressive young man. He has done well, he pays his taxes and contributes to society.”Mr James was brought to Britain 16 years ago by his father, who feared political persecution, and enrolled at Upper Tooting Independent High School, south London.He was forced to leave school at 16 after his parents stopped paying his fees but told him it was not safe to come home. He took a succession of low-paid jobs then carved out a successful career in the financial services industry.After five years working for Guardian Royal Exchange, he set up his own business trading in commodities He earns pounds 40,000 a year. He is taking an MBA through the Open University.In an interview with The Independent last September, Mr James said: “I am a high tax payer, I pay my mortgage and I have not got a criminal record, but hard work and merit don’t seem to count. Would they prefer I had six kids that I could not afford to support?”Mr James, who changed his name from Olawale Babatayo, came to the attention of the immigration authorities because he approached them in an attempt to regularise his status. But because he had originally been given only three years leave to remain in Britain he was issued with a deportation notice.During a seven-year legal battle to stay in Britain – “the only country I know” – he has never tried to abscond and has complied fully with requirements to report to the authorities.

He has spent pounds 20,000 in legal bills fighting deportation.Mr James, who can no longer speak his childhood language, Yoruba, said that he is so anglicised that members of the Nigerian community in Britain do not accept him as African. “I would have no way of starting a new life there [in Nigeria].”The Home Office maintains that, as an “overstayer”, Mr James has no right to choose to live in Britain.. DOCTORS YESTERDAY issued a warning to women in Merseyside after a spate of alleged rapes in which women reported having their drinks drugged before being assaulted. About 12 women have reported being raped in Liverpool in the past few months, with a least four saying their drinks were “spiked”.

Three of the women, who are aged between 16 and 25, said they were assaulted after going into a “trance” while out drinking with friends during the Maybank holiday.
In one case a woman said she woke up in a field to find a man sexually assaulting her. In another a woman said she began to lose her memory after one and a half glasses of wine.Health workers fear many more women were assaulted but are afraid to forward.There is growing concern about the use by sex attackers of so-called “date rape” drugs, such as Rohypnol and GHB. These tranquillisers and anaesthetics, which are odourless and colourless, leave victims semi- conscious for several hours and with little memory of their experiences.The Royal Liverpool University Hospital and Liverpool Brook Advisory Services, the organisations that have dealt with all the alleged rape victims, said in a statement: “This new wave of assaults, including rape, seems to arise when drinks are left unattended, often only briefly. It is possible that some kind of chemical substance is added to the drink which causes the victim to become unaware of what she is doing.”Medical staff warned “students who may be celebrating end of term to be particularly on the alert”.Dr Peter Carey, consultant in genito-urinary medicine at the Royal, said: “We have seen about a dozen women in recent weeks. It is a new phenomenon for us and I feel that the women who have come for help so far may be the tip of the iceberg.”Generally, this appears to be happening to girls or women who report being unable to remember events after having a drink.