The crowd at last week’s Balmoral Show was sparse over the first couple of days, although numbers were boosted by an excellent turnout of politicians, including British cabinet member George Eustice, secretary of state at Defra.

He spent two days in NI, visiting Linden Foods in Dungannon, and dining with the NI Food and Drink Association (NIFDA) on Wednesday, before hitting the show on Thursday.

By the time he got to Balmoral, Eustice had clearly had enough of industry lobbying around worker shortages in factories, making it pretty clear at a meeting on Thursday morning that he understood fully the issue and didn’t want to hear any more about it.

That’s pretty good lobbying, I reckon.

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