THE Labour Party conference at Blackpool, where tempers are already running high over private/public partnerships and the possibility of war against Iraq, is to be interrupted this week - by a broiler chicken!

Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) is sending Bobby the Broiler - a man size model chicken said to have escaped from a battery poultry farm - to lobby delegates into banning factory farming.

Bobby the Broiler is part of a major new initiative to educate the public about the appalling welfare conditions suffered by intensively farmed meat chickens. Some 800 million chickens are reared in the UK annually for meat - but each lives for only 41 days.