Next year 170 visits are expected to be made to training grounds and stadiums to conduct some 500 tests

Next year 170 visits are expected to be made to training grounds and stadiums to conduct some 500 tests. "It happens in horse racing, where officials and starters are tested along with jockeys," said the PFA's chief executive, Gordon Taylor. In a move agreed with the Football Association before the Arsenal captain Tony Adams's admission of alcoholism earlier this month, the PFA has accepted the addition of breathalysers to the drug tests its members take, voluntarily since 1978 and compulsorily for the past three years. ENGLISH football's players' union is calling upon referees to be subjected to the same drugs and alcohol testing as players have to undergo. The Professional Footballers' Association says that as officials are so influential in a game, they should also be expected to be clean and sober themselves. "We will set up a standing Ethics Committee to evaluate the ethical and moral dimension of bio-genetics," said Mr Morley.The Opposition's policy document is expected to appear in November, when there will be consultations with the National Farmers' Union and other interested bodies.. Science is advancing at such a rate that, for instance, it could soon be technically possible to develop a chicken without feathers, which would obviate the need for plucking. Cows are bred to have such huge udders that their back legs are forced out, causing lameness.Labour further promises to regulate bio-genetic engineering on the farm.

Labour intends to take firm action against these people."Their latest scam of importing calves to be slaughtered in the UK to claim subsidy from the taxpayer is an abuse. Labour will stop this." The document will also address the issue of selective breeding, which is being used to breed heavier animals that grow more quickly.Broiler chickens - hens produced for their meat - are reared to be so heavy that they suffer painful leg problems, while turkeys develop degenerative hip disorders. Until the cage is abandoned, battery eggs should, in the interest of informed consumer choice, be labelled as `eggs from caged hens'."Labour has endorsed the Compassion in World Farming manifesto, and many of its aims will be incorporated in its own policy document.Mr Morley added: "We support clear consumer labelling so that consumers can use the power of choice to support those producers who have switched to less intensive animal-production systems such as free range and outdoor pig systems."In a move certain to be welcomed by animal-welfare activists, Labour will commit itself to a move away from the export of live animals in favour of meat exports."Not only is live animal export bad for the welfare of the animal, it is also bad for the rural economy," said Labour's animal-welfare spokesman."It also encourages a criminal underclass who consistently flout the law. There will also be stronger regulations on egg-package labelling, so that customers know in what conditions hens are kept.Labour's move follows publication last week of a manifesto by Compassion in World Farming aimed at making animal welfare a key issue in the coming general election.Demanding an EU ban on battery cages, CIWF said this form of intensive husbandry often led to "serious physical disorders and pain".Peter Stevenson, the organisation's political director, said: "Hens are usually crammed five to a cage so they cannot spread their wings, let alone walk and build a nest."The lack of exercise results in bone weakness and a high incidence of broken bones. But party sources admit that the union leaders are still in a mood to defeat Mr Blair on this issue, which will trigger Tory claims that the unions are seeking to reassert their power under a Labour administration.Neal Ascherson, page 21. LABOUR is proposing to ban battery hen farming as part of a radical new deal for animals.

A party strategy document, Farming Without Cruelty, is to be published soon by Labour's animal-welfare spokesman, Elliot Morley, promising legislation by a Blair government to improve life on the farm. Central to it will be a pledge that Labour will press the European Union to redefine animals in the Treaty of Rome as "sentient beings" rather than "agricultural products".The policy paper will condemn battery hen rearing, which affects about 30 million birds in the UK and many millions more in continental Europe.Denmark has already banned the practice, and pressure for a ban is also strong in Sweden."Labour wants to end battery farming, but we will have to do it on a Europe-wide basis," said Mr Morley.In the short term, the party will encourage improvements in the existing system, providing greater room for the birds and a perch. A coalition of unions has put together a demand that Labour in government must give rights at work on day one of a new job. Mr Blair is opposing the move and has privately warned union chiefs that he regards it as "an issue of confidence". But the unions, led by the MSF and the general union GMB and supported by the Transport Workers, insist that John Smith's promise to restore employment rights abolished by the Conservatives must be honoured.Labour's employment-law specialist, Ian McCartney MP, is this weekend trying to reach a compromise embodying the leader's policy and the unions' demands. TONY BLAIR is heading for another showdown with the unions at the Labour Party conference despite secret peace moves last week. The Labour leader met union chiefs in the Shadow Cabinet room last Thursday for an inquest into the "Blackpool debacle" 10 days ago, when the unions' historic link with the party came under threat. Mr Blair disowned the suggestion by his employment spokesman, Stephen Byers, that the link could be scrapped. The Labour leader was said by one source to be "contrite" at the Westminster summit, while another union leader described his approach as "conciliatory".However, the peace looks certain to be short-lived.

The last thing the Tory party or Britain wants is for Norman Tebbit to keep up unavailing civil warfare in the party."He accused Euro-sceptics of "knowing nothing" about the way Emu would work "Good progress" was being made, he said. "I think the single currency could offer prospects of stability, low interest rates, and a zone of economic conditions which attract inward investment and stimulate growth of trade."One Conservative source said that the Left of the party had decided that "enough is enough".. Kenneth Clarke spoke out for British membership of the European Monetary Union (Emu), saying the single currency could offer the prospect of a stable economy and wealth creation. Mr Clarke's intervention comes as four ministers, including one member of the Cabinet, prepare to break cover in defence of Europe this week at a conference organised by senior figures on the party's Left.Environment Secretary John Gummer and three colleagues outside the Cabinet, Ian Taylor, Robin Squire and Nicholas Soames, have all accepted invitations to a one-day conference organised by Mainstream, an umbrella organisation of pro-European groupings.Yesterday at a meeting with European finance ministers in Dublin to finalise plans for the single currency, Mr Clarke said Lord Tebbit was "out of touch" after the former Tory party chairman told Radio 4's Today programme that John Major should rule out British membership of the single currency.Mr Clarke said: "I wish Norman would devote his considerable talents to getting the Government elected and not continually trying to open updivision about settled policy. THE Chancellor yesterday accused Tory Euro-sceptics of increasing Labour's chances of winning the next election by provoking "civil warfare" in the Tory party over the single currency. "Every British election study since 1964 has demonstrated the point: disillusioned Tories are much more likely to vote for the LibDems or just stay at home than switch to Labour.". "Evidence from previous electoral cycles suggests that the Government's popularity will recover dramatically." He estimates Labour's true lead is more like seven points: "There's no room for complacency."On the question of what Labour should do to win the election, Professor Heath draws attention to a new "directional theory" of voting behaviour, under which voters support parties whose aims and values lie in the same direction as their own."The voter who is, say, just to the left of centre (the typical Liberal Democrat that Labour needs to concentrate on winning back), will thus be inclined to support a left-of-centre party, even if it is quite a bit to the left of centre, rather than a party which might be ideologically closer but lies in the `wrong' direction (that is, to the right of the voter)."This theory suggests that Labour needs to concentrate on "left of centre" issues such as the NHS, state education or local democracy, which are also of concern to Liberal Democrats, argues Professor Heath.Their votes are far easier to win than Tory votes, he says.

"Labour's defeats in 1987 and 1992 were almost certainly not due to tactical mistakes like the Sheffield rally or policy mistakes on taxation, but to the legacy of the 1981 split."Anthony Heath is co-director of the Centre for the Study of Elections and Social Trends and is co-author of an exhaustive study of the last general election and of a general study of voting patterns since 1964.In his article, to appear in Red Pepper's October edition, he warns Labour that its present opinion poll lead of 20 to 30 points does not guarantee it victory. Professor Anthony Heath of Nuffield College, Oxford, argues that Labour has never won votes directly from the Conservatives and is "highly unlikely" to do so now. Instead, its best chance of victory is to attract the support of people in the centre and left of centre who might otherwise vote Liberal Democrat or Scottish Nationalist. "Labour needs to re-create the broad church that existed before the defection of the SDP," argues Professor Heath. Because of the prolonged run-up to the election, which John Major said will not be held until next year, some politicians see the need to scrutinise tasks officials are asked to undertake.Yesterday Derek Foster, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said the document illustrated that policy changes in the pipeline "ought to be dealt with from the point of view of a wide consensus".He added: "I think there is a strong argument that the Government has been irresponsible with the civil service, imposing upon them changes, a result of which is demoralisation among civil servants."A spokeswoman for the Cabinet Office refused to comment on the contents of the leaked document, or how it differs from previous versions. LABOUR could yet lose the next election, but Tony Blair is wasting his time courting Conservative voters, according to a leading expert on elections writing in the left-wing monthly Red Pepper.