Opinion

Anyone who believed the General Election campaign would be conducted in an intelligent manner should have been among the shoppers at Sainsbury's supermarket at London's Nine Elms on Thursday. The farce began when entourages from our two major political parties strode defiantly out of the early morning mist to conduct stunts which signalled that the campaigning by Labour and the Tories in 1997 could well rival the worst turns in a third rate pantomime. Not even Max Clifford at his most imaginative could have topped the events which unfolded before bewildered south London shoppers, not to mention the busy staff of the multiple's shining superstore. Shortly after nine o'clock, Labour Party luminaries Margaret Beckett and Alistair Darling, accompanied by a team of minions clutching electronic calculators, ceremoniously pushed a trolley around the aisles to purchase a "typical Briton's weekly shop". After posing at the checkout for a group of cynical Fleet Street snappers, Ms Beckett in her best Mrs Average Housewife suit, sternly warned all who would listen that her bill of £37.90 would be increased to £44.53 when those nasty Tories imposed VAT on food should they emerge victorious in the Election. But alas, unfortunately for the Blair team a bright spark at Conservative Central Office had heard of the stunt. Thus the already bemused consumers were amazed to see Tory MP Alan Duncan, parliamentary private secretary to the Party chairman no less, swiftly intercept the posse of Presspersons, waving a bunch of Sainsbury's best bananas. The bunch of fruit was destined for Labour Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown, Duncan proclaimed, who "had made a monkey of himself with his lies and smear campaign suggesting that the Tories would ever impose VAT on food". Back in the warmth of their Whitehall offices however, John Major and Ken Clarke were busy repeating pledges that VAT on food was not a Tory option. Is it too much to hope there will be no repeat performances of this charade?{{NEWS}}