Sunday Express

Prince Charles's closest environmental aide, Jonathon Porritt, says Greenpeace moves to stop test crops is "insane". Film producer Lord Puttnam, a patron of the green movement, also condemned Greenpeace's stance as "dangerously anti-science".

Mr Porritt, an ex-Friends of the Earth director who cooperated with Greenpeace chief Lord Melchett at the organisation for years, has strongly opposed the introduction of GM foods in British supermarkets. He also helped to write Prince Charles's speeches promoting organic farming. But he now says Greenpeace has gone "too far".

He said: "I know Peter Melchett feels very passionately about this but I think he is just plain wrong. It is insane to say we don't need any field tests in Britain. How else will we know what the risks from GM foods really are?"

Lord Puttnam, vice-president of the Council for the Protection of Rural England and a trustee of Forum for the Future, Mr Porritt's environmental think tank and consultancy, said: "Britain must not turn its back on science. That is a very dangerous path to tread. Without it, how will we survive as a competitive nation and create new jobs?" Lord Melchett spent two nights in Norwich jail after taking part in a protest during which activists ripped up a GM trial crop in Lyng, Norfolk.

Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth, described the week's events as "disastrous". "We had the Government on the ropes. Now ministers have been able to go on the attack by talking about environmental terrorists and making the issue Greenpeace and its tactics, not whether we want GM foods in this country."

Lord Melchett said: "What we did was no different from confronting a Japanese whaler who believes the whale in the sea belongs to him."John Sauven, Greenpeace campaigns director, said they had received "hundreds of letters of support".