Pocket the difference (outside of CAP)

There really is something un-prime-ministerial about Gordon Brown telling us to avoid BOGOF offers at our local supermarket when so much of his own policy agenda is causing our weekly food bills to grow and grow.

Daniel Hannan gets to the meat of the issue on his blog:

"Before lecturing the rest of us, the Prime Minister might usefully ponder what he could to do lower food bills. Gordon Brown says that judicious purchasing could save the average family £8.00 a week. Even if this is true, it is a small saving next to the £20.00 a week that we should save if Britain left the EU's Common Agricultural Policy.

The CAP is the most expensive, wasteful and amoral system of farm support devised by human intelligence. It penalises us repeatedly: we pay higher taxes to encourage production, we pay again to store surpluses, we pay yet again to destroy them, and then we're billed all over again as consumers to maintain artificially high prices. Output-based subsidies encourage the felling of hedgerows and the use of chemical fertilisers. Preventable poverty is inflicted on Africa, which finds European markets closed to its chief exports. Agricultural subsidies stand in the way of a comprehensive world trade settlement which would benefit consumers and farmers alike. Inflation is driven up, with deleterious consequences for the entire economy."

More here.  And for those wanting even more on the costs of EU membership please see this post reflecting on Chris Chope MP's recent contribution to a Commons debate he instigated.

Comments

[David_McD]

All very true, Tim, but to escape from the CAP we will first have to leave the EU and this David Cameron will not do.

So you, Daniel Hannan and all those sensible Tories who have seen the light, will just have to join us in UKIP!

[Outrider]

Thanks for the link to Chris Chope MP's figures for the cost of the CAP to british families. The system of CAP tariffs and production quotas does indeed act mainly to raise the cost of food above the world price level, thus transferring very significant funds direct to food shoppers to food producers in a handful of countries.

I do not believe that coming out of the CAP necesarilly means leaving the EU. The Conservatives may however have to threaten that (and in the last resort be prepared to do it) in order to renegotiate our EU membership to one of trade rather than political union.

[Ken Stevens]

Bog Off is what Gordon Brown could usefully pay heed to on so many levels!

Bogof is potentially wasteful if the extra amount of product is perishable, incapable of being stored and is more than can be consumed within its edibility period.

A freezer is capable of dealing with most perishables. As the main supermarket shopper of the household, I note that most bogofs are of non-perishables. Teabags, breakfast cereals and suchlike go into the cupboard for later consumption and get deleted from the next shopping list accordingly.

So, never mind all this highflown CAP stuff. Even on the humdrum basics Mr B is somewhat adrift!