Food security. Who expected that old fear to show its gaunt face again?
Yet here it is back in the headlines, and not just on the international pages:
Now the shopping crunch: Food prices soar at fastest rate for 17 years
Families already struggling to cope with the credit crunch face huge increases in food bills because of global shortages. With the international cost of cereals up by almost half in a year, British meat and dairy products have soared in price. Costs are rising faster than at any time since 1991 and the average shopping bill is likely to go up by £600 a year.
It is an issue that David Cameron addressed in his speech to the NFU earlier this year, but Conservatives were on the case long before that.
Back in 2004, Tim Yeo made the following remarks to Party Conference:
"I believe farming and food production are strategically important. I worry about how much food we import and the risk of disruption to supply in today's uncertain world."
Speaking to the CPRE in 2005 he said:
"British food production is in decline. In the end that leads to a long-term threat to our food security.Do we really want to end up importing two-thirds of our food? Or three-quarters? Or four-fifths? ... How much of our land do we want to allow to go out of food production? When I put this question to Ministers, it was obvious they hadn't even thought about it."
There were always those who just didn't care about the decline of British farming, who thought we could rely on cheap imported food. Well, it's not so cheap now.
Note that this isn't a defence of the Common Agricultural Policy, which has had its own destructive effect on farming both in the UK and in the developing world.
Nor is food security the only emerging concern on which Conservatives have shown foresight. There was William Hague on immigration. Ann Widdecombe on the impact of cannabis use. Oliver Letwin on personal debt. David Davis on prison overcrowding. And let's not forget Margaret Thatcher on climate change.
Most of all Conservatives in the 1970s and 80s anticipated the enormous challenge of globalisation and, in government, prepared Britain accordingly.
I think what will destroy Gordon Brown and his reputation is the extent to which New Labour has failed to prepare Britain for the storms that are heading our way now.