Seven days

"Until now we have been spending in an inefficient and indefensible way," says agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, whose family runs a farm in beer-drinking Denmark. She says her plan would "boost competition, drain the infamous wine lakes, and make things more simple".

Under the "grubbing-up" scheme, producers will be paid to leave the industry or reduce their acreage of vines. To encourage early take-up, the average payment would higher in the first year: €7,174 (£4,860) per hectare in the first year, falling to €2,938 (£1,990) over five years.

The commission also announced that efficient producers would find it easier to expand, and labelling rules would be simplified.

Traditional producers said they feared the EU wished to industrialise wine production. Riccardo Ricci Curbastro, who runs the Italian quality wine producers club from the former home of Niccolo Machiavelli, said: "What is wine? Grape juice fermented? No, it is more than that: it is the land, the soil, the history of a place."

The problem is often one of size. The average Italian estate is just one hectare - one fifth the size of its equivalent in Aus-tralia and California. And faced with the marketing attack from New World wines, no wonder the European trade is suffering.

Because it's not just Italy where feelings run high about wine. Growers in the Langue-doc-Roussillon region of France are adopting guerrilla tactics to fight cheap imports.

Members of the regional wine-growers' action committee, dressed in combat fatigues and balaclavas, have issued a video in which they warn that "blood will blow" unless President Sarkozy acts to raise the prices of foreign competition.

The group has already attack shops that sell imported wine, and two years ago hijacked a lorry.

Change of election day

General elections could be held at weekends in future to encourage more people to take part. The prospect of weekend voting was among a series of constitutional reforms announced by Gordon Brown last week.

The plan - to be examined by justice secretary Jack Straw - would bring us into line with our European neighbours. France and Germany are among those to hold elections on a Sunday, but since 1935 the British have gone to the polls on Thursdays.

The last election to be held on a Saturday was in 1918 (the year when women over 30 first won the right to vote). Ironically, that year also saw the lowest recorded turnout at 58.9%. Turnout kept steady between 70% and 80% from the 1950s to the early 1990s, but dropped sharply after 1992. Tony Blair won a second term in 2001 on the lowest voter turnout since 1918 - 59.4%.

Gordon Brown also announced that he would be giving up some of his powers under the royal prerogative. These include: The power to declare war The power to request a dissolution of parliament The power to appoint judges The power to choose bishops He said he also wanted to finish new Labour's earlier reform of the House of Lords, but is planning no action on the so-called West Lothian question - under which MPs from Scottish constituencies have a vote on all matters in England, but English MPs have no say on matters devolved to the Scottish parliament.

"We do not accept the proposal for English votes for English laws, which would create two classes of MPs - some entitled to vote on all issues, some invited to vote only on some," said the prime minister.

Critics might say that's exactly what we have at the moment.

They've already killed six people and driven many others from their homes, but the flood waters haven't quite finished with us yet. Now farmers are warning of food shortages later this year.

Thousands of acres of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflowers, potatoes, onions and carrots are rotting in the ground unable to be harvested. According to one estimate, a third of the annual 150,000-ton pea harvest has been lost.

Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire, badly hit by the driving rain and floods, provide 40% of home-grown produce. Ian Grant, who farms near Boston, Lincolnshire, said: "I usually plant a total of 200 acres of broccoli but so far only 30 acres are planted and they are just rotting in the ground".

Martin Riggall, chief executive of the Processed Vegetable Growers Association, said: "Some of the most productive areas have been absolutely devastated. They look like a first world war battlefield. We have never seena growing season like this."

The news came as Nestlé, the world's largest food company, also warned of a significant and long-lasting rise in food prices. Peter Brabeck, the company chairman, said the use of crops for biofuels and the rise in demand from China and India would all have an impact.

According to the Financial Times, corn prices have risen by 60% over the past year and wheat prices are up by 50%. Sugar, milk and cocoa prices are all up.

Mother and child reunion

A seven-year-old girl could grow up to be the first woman in the world to give birth to her half-sister.

Flavie Boivin was born with Turner's syndrome, a genetic disorder that means she will reach the menopause early and will probably be infertile by the time she wants to have children.

But it was revealed last week that her mother, Melanie Boivin, a 35-year-old lawyer from Mon-treal, has donated some of her own eggs.

"For a complete year I was thinking about it and discussing it with my partner because we were concerned about the ethical questions," she said. "Would I look at the child as my grandchild or as my own? After a year I was convinced there were more advantages than disadvantages."

If Flavie wishes to use the eggs in future, she will need to seek approval from a medical ethics committee. Melanie's generosity would be more complicated in Britain, where frozen eggs cannot be stored for more than 10 years.