Funnily enough, now you mention it, I've just bought a leg of lamb - for Sunday dinner.
It was from my we-never-close local butcher, not a supermarket. How much? Go on, how much? "Tell us", I don't hear you cry.
£17.59! Yes, you 'eard! £17.59!!!!!! I couldn't catch my breath! For Christ's sake, it's not as if I'd asked for panda burgers, topside of snow leopard or loin Do-Do chops!
After I'd asked for "lamb" and was told the price I chuckled:
"No, no, mate. I don't want a whole one. I've got four dogs at home and I'm up to quota on pets, thanks very much."
When he informed me it was the price for just 25 per cent of ONE sheep's undercarriage I raced home as I felt a letter coming on to the Minister of State for Agriculture (and Fisheries, and Food as well, as if it wasn't enough to fuck up just one thing):
Dear George Eustice,
I have just bought a leg of lamb. It cost £17.59. Why?
Just 100 yards down the road from where I live is a verdant, largely agricultural county. Wanna know something about it? You can't move so much as ten yards there without tripping over a soddin' sheep!
There must be millions of the beggars! Despite this, if sheep have been added to the list of endangered species then no-one told me! Now I'm no economics professor, don't get me wrong, but I always thought this "market" business of which you and your fellow Tories are so fond basically dictated: Lots of something = cheap; Not lots of something = expensive? Supply and demand? Am I right or am I right?
Someone once told me in a pub, near closing time, that stuff like lamb is expensive because we export all ours and import required amounts which obviously costs more, free shipping not yet being available.
Now, I'm no professor of agriculture either but here's an idea - why don't we eat OUR lamb and let the New Zealanders or whoever eat THEIRS? Wouldn't it also cut out the inhumane shipping of livestock halfway around the world in converted slave ships?
Don't tell me, our farmers wouldn't make such obscene amounts of money and be restricted to just one Range Rover each? Hell, even worse, they may stop voting Tory! That trickle you can hear is my heart bleeding.
I'm not suggesting we start culling farmers - you save that only for harmless, beautiful creatures which can't defend themselves. Besides, it should be a job for the Army - but summat has to be done.
I look forward to hearing your suggestions.
Reg.
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