Two litres of milk for 97 pence

One of the games that the press likes to play with politicians is stick a microphone under their nose and ask the price of some basic commodity such as a loaf of bread or a pint of milk to see if they know the answer - the theory being that if they do know they are more likely to be understanding of a hard working family trying to balance a budget or a senior citizen trying to keep body and soul together on a state pension.

If  a journalist playing this game ever asked me the price of a pint of milk, my answer would begin with the comment that anyone who wants set themselves up as a judge over whether policiticans are in touch with the real world ought to be sufficiently in touch themselves to know that people who are remotely price-sensitive should not be buying milk by the pint.

Shops which sell milk will almost invariably offer a litre of milk (2.2 pints) at a price which is much better value for money than a pint, and a two litre container of milk is usually much better value still.

A person who lives on their own and doesn't use much milk, or doesn't have access to a fridge, might have need to buy milk by the pint, but if you go through milk at the rate my family does, you usually buy it in two litre containers.

If you keep your eyes open for prices while shopping, it is interesting to see that many people are very price sensitive, but some definately are not. There are at least three or four shops in Whitehaven, and several in Workington, where you can get a 2-litre container of milk for about a pound, and it is obvious that both budget food shops and major supermarkets think some customers are paying a great deal of attention to this price, either because they are shopping for the best price milk or because they see it as a general indicator of relative prices.

It is equally obvious that some customers are much less price sensitive than others. In certain shops there are several adjacent racks of milk in which different brands of milk are for sale, side by side. Provided you look carefully it is not difficult to find milk at about £1 per two litres, but if you just grab some without looking you are as likely to get a slightly different brand from the next rack which is thirty or forty percent more expensive.

And personally I can't for the life of me taste the difference or otherwise tell apart the milk which costs 30% more from the basic brand,

Today I noticed that Morrisons in Whitehaven has dropped the price of a the main economy two litre container of milk below the pound mark to 97p. Not a special offer, apparently not a sale of stock which is about to go off, this was presented as the standard price for the economy brand.

If you are not a dairy farmer or an employee of the dairy industry, that probably sounds to you like good news. Given what the state of the economy has been doing to the household budgets of most British people, most of us would tend to welcome any prices going down rather than up.

Part of what is driving this is the gradual relaxation of milk quotas before they are phased out as part of reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy - something else which many taxpayers will naturally be inclined to welcome.

And yet, dairy farming has been under enormous pressure for years. If the price of milk is driven low enough to force lots of farmers out of business, the impact on the countryside and the economy will not be good.

I can't bring myself to complain about a rare instance of good news in terms of cheap prices for a basic necessity in our shops. But we need to watch out and pay attention to what is happening to British farms.

I am not objecting to the workings of a free and open economy: I am saying that the impact of this should be considered when the government reviews the Single Farm Payment system under which we are already spending millions of pounds of taxpayers' money to support the countryside, and the allocation should take into account which parts of the rural and agricultural economy are most in need of help.