Mike's Minute: Are politicians trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist?

Oh the irony. In the same week we got all that hot air about supermarkets and co-operative bust-ups, we got the food price index out of the stats department. And as much as you may like to deny it, argue about it, or ignore it, these are statistics. They are not reckons, or supermarket isle chatter, or lazy street-side vox pops for the TV. Food went up 1.9% annually, which if you remember the previous annualised number being 1.9%, means it's flat. Month on month it's flat and annually it's up 1.9%. In other words it's not an issue and certainly not the issue the complainers and activists and politicians make it out to be. There is a very clear differentiation between what we would like to pay, or what we perceive to be acceptable, and what is really going on. Fruit and vegetables went down. They went backwards, as in they are cheaper. The biggest increase which added to the overall figure was restaurant and takeaway meals, an easily avoided cost if cost is your main food gripe. At the pricey end was meat, poultry and fish, which went up a bit over 3%. By the way rent, as in houses, was flat for the year. In other words there's no cost of living issue there. Yes it's a separate category, but nevertheless it's another reminder that not everything is up and up a lot and therefore worth getting angsty about. If you really want to get wound up, guess what power prices did? They went down. The point of all this is reality is not always what you think it is, or would like it to be. The food story has become a soap opera and that’s why we got the nonsense from the politicians last week, captured by the consultants who poll people and say thing like "do you think food is too expensive?". Of course the answer is yes. "Are you paying too much?" Answer - yes. The next step is meeting over the campaign. Then the next step is we're breaking up supermarkets and we're banning price gouging, even though it's not real and most likely won't happen. More importantly it won't actually solve anything because the facts show there was nothing to solve. What drove it was mood, driven by perception, and you can rarely fix perception. Especially if you don’t want it fixed.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.