On Fri, 1 Aug 2003 10:53:24 +0100, "Jim Webster"
posted:


"Moosh:]" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 14:34:29 +0100, "Jim Webster"
wrote:


"Moosh:]" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 13:10:50 +0100, "Jim Webster"
wrote:

Good one! Thing that staggers me is how little of a pint of milk or a
pound of beef you producers actually get. You lot seem to supply a
cheap raw material for every other bugger to cop a markup on.
I know you've tried to take action on this, but I suppose there is
always a farmer in the next village who is hungrier and will cave in.
You need something like a builders' union or a miners' union. Big and
powerful that can fund you for a three month strike.

in the UK supermarket chains make party donations, farmers don't.

I understand this, but what always amazes me is that supermarkets
don't vote.


farmers are now an insignificant proportion of the electorate in the UK, in
any constituency. So you can ignore them and just stuff the party coffers
with supermarket funds

Don't you have those bumper stickers "Without farmers we starve and go
naked"? Seems like a little factual "propaganda" should work wonders,
although you don't have compulsory voting there, do you. That's a
bummer. You could convert a dozen villagers, and they will not likely
bother to vote if it's raining.

Also a three month strike at the right time of year, even if possible
would
lead to a collapse of western society because people would starve.Even if
they imported the food, there isn't all that much food on the market (see
what UK fmd outbreak did to beef prices in the first couple of weeks of
the
outbreak and UK is not a big beef producer in world terms)
In the UK with a lorry drivers strike there was a panic and the
supermarkets
were nearly emptied overnight. I doubt there are the stocks of food in
the
country to stand a two week break in supply.

Yes, I believe London has only a short survival time if food imports
are cut.


I suspect very few major cities actually have meaningful food stocks.How
many public authorities actually do have any food stockpile?

None that I know of, they leave it to the supermarkets. I have a
couple of Woollies and Coles pantech barrelling up the road every day.