IT IS more difficult to eat healthy food these days than when I was a child.

But defenders of ultra-processed foods (which dominate supermarket shelves) argue that “all the information you need to make healthy choices is there on the labels”. They say consumers “have never been more informed; the food industry has never been more transparent.”

But putting information on labels is not the same as informing. (Apologies for the sarcasm) Afterall, to select healthy choices when your shopping, all you need is: a good magnifying glass; a calculator; space to arrange the options; a note book and pen; a creche to occupy your children for a few hours; the time to do it; and a post-graduate degree in nutritional science, and diploma in comparable analysis. So, it’s quite simple really! (Choose your own emoji).

The Health Select Committee I’m a member of is currently undertaking an ‘Inquiry into Healthy Eating and Weight Management’. The evidence we’re collecting is alarming. We can’t carry on like this. The way food processing companies effectively hide the unhealthy consequences of consuming their products — especially when promoted with dishonest healthy imagery — is a cause for considerable concern. The food processing industry is booming. And people in the UK are among the biggest consumers of ultra-processed food. In 2023, they made up 57 per cent of the calories consumed by the average adult and 65 per cent for children.

Our inquiry continues. We will prepare a report in the spring.

It was my privilege to visit Afghanistan twice during the UK’s effort to support that country with peacekeeping and nation building. The heroism and professionalism of our armed forces was outstanding and a source of enormous national pride. More than 400 were killed in combat and more than 2,200 seriously injured. Many known to you and me, from our communities here in Cornwall.

Donald Trump’s characteristically ignorant, and petulantly childish remark about the UK deployment to Afghanistan tells us more about him and his desire to court controversy, whatever the consequences …and provides yet further evidence of his unfitness for office.

Recent weeks have been a time of substantial preparation in Westminster for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which took place last week — January 27. It marks the anniversary when the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. At a time when racism, extremism, antisemitism and islamophobia are on the rise, remembering the atrocities of the Holocaust and its victims — the genocide of five-million members of marginalised groups, including gypsies, disabled people, homosexuals, and Hitler’s political opponents, and six-million Jews (one-million of whom died in Auschwitz alone) — must never be forgotten.

Tragically there've been horrific incidents of genocide worldwide since the Holocaust - including very recent times.

"It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere." — Primo Levi.

We must never forget.