Why Choice Isn't Aways a Good Thing

I WAS shopping in Ormskirk this week for ingredients for an Italian dish.

The recipe called for fresh basil and, as I happened to be in Tesco at the time, I checked out what they had on offer. I was alarmed to find that they did indeed have fresh basil, but it had come from Israel.

Now I know damn well that basil can be grown in this country so I decided to go to Park Fresh down the road where I found a nice batch of basil which had been grown in England and, moreover, it was cheaper than the stuff at Tesco.

Now I know supemarkets have taken quite a hammering in the press over the past few years and every time this happens some bland company spokesweasal gives us the usual rubbish about: "Our customers tell us they like to have a choice.. blah blah blah."

Sorry, but I shop at Tesco sometimes, as do my family, and we have NEVER demanded Israeli basil.

I would understand if it was tomatoes, given the time of year, or pineapple whch cannot be grown here at all, but basil? Come off it.

This is all because 'choice' is good, apparently. We all want choice, so the captains of industry keep telling us.

But I'd actually like it if they turned around and said: "No, you can't have that because it's it's out of season and if we flew it in it would taste rubbish, cost a bomb and ruin the environment. You'll just have to wait, won't you?"

Politicians are the same. They say we can choose which hospital we're treated in. But do they honestly think someone who needs urgent medical attention gives a fig where they are treated? No, they just want to stay alive.

Unfortunately, because it has been, ahem, 'decided' that choice is so brill, we now have schools in poorer areas closing because parents are obessed by catchment areas, global warming because of food being jetted in from all four corners of the earth and small, independent grocers forced out of business all because local authorities roll over at the sight of moneybags supermarkets with their teams of hot lawyers ready to take them to the Planning Inspectorate if local councillors have the temerity to tell them to hop it.

Still think 'choice' is such a great thing?

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