The thing is, Chris Loder MP does actually have a point

Or perhaps, it’s possible to divine a useful and important point in what Loder is saying even if it’s not quite the one he thinks he’s making:

Mr Loder said: “It is in our mid and long-term interest that these logistics chains do break.

“It will mean the farmer down the street will be able to sell their milk in the village shop like they did decades ago. It is because these commercial predators – the supermarkets – have wiped that out and I’d like to see that come back.”

Any rational examination of what a supermarket is will conclude that it is, in fact, that logistics chain. The shop itself is just the box at the end. The economic entity is that chain that fills it - the logistics.

We insist that said logistics is one of the grand achievements of the modern age as well. We’d not want to see them break any more than we’d like to be in the age before penicillin.

However, we do insist that we believe in markets, markets untrammelled by unnecessary interventions. Which means that we’re entirely happy with, even insist upon, competition among models as well as specific participants within the one model. So, why is it that the local farmer cannot sell in the village shop?

Actually, it’s because we have specific regulations against it. At least, it’s illegal to sell raw milk other than directly, selling it through a shop is verboeten. In Scotland, even direct sale is illegal. This means that the farmer must pasteurise the milk at the farm. Or, must sell direct at the farm gate, deliver directly to households - or must sell to a wholesale operation that does the pasteurisation.

At which stage there is actually a point in what Loder says. We don’t want to break the supermarket logistics chains, not in the slightest. But we’d be entirely on side with reducing regulation, freeing up the supply side of the economy, so that alternatives can compete on a level footing. For the benefits of competition come not just from battles between different people being more or less efficient at doing the same thing but also - and more importantly too - from different methods of doing different things.