From David Warr.
THE public demand for a third supermarket appears insatiable. ‘We need more choice!’ they cry.

As I wandered up and down the aisles of the Co-op Grand Marché the other day I was surrounded by shelves full of everything from fresh produce to tinned goods, and I reflected on the headline complaining about the apparent lack of choice that we suffer in this Island.

I thought about the displaced people my company helped in a tiny way earlier this year in Kenya. I remembered their list of requirements – maize, powdered milk, toothpaste, blankets – and I wondered what choice they had. The choice of having something to eat or not. Is that a choice?

In fact, it’s impossible for everybody in the world to have the choice we have in our stores simply because there are not enough resources in the globe to go around. While poverty is relative, and there is no doubt hardship in this Island, aren’t we really confusing choice with fairness?

Recently a leading retailer was castigated for not following the lead of its UK counterparts in offering a major discount on its goods to local consumers. It was as though consumers didn’t have a choice, but they did: they didn’t have to shop there.

What people actually felt was that it wasn’t fair. Only the management will be able to answer that one.
My point is that if we continue to confuse choice with fairness, we as an Island are in line to make some catastrophic decisions. Concreting over green fields to give us more choice is just one of them.
Fairness? That’s another thing completely.
La Bicherie,
Augrès Farm,
Trinity.