Price caps are a slippery slope

Sometimes it’s the little things that depress most. I groaned last week to hear the news item. The government is contemplating a ‘price cap’ on ‘basic items’ in ‘supermarkets’. Forgive the quotation marks, but each of these terms is so horribly problematic that one has to start by asking what they even mean. Has Conservatism in the 2020s lost its ideological moorings?

Or perhaps one should start with a quick recapitulation of the history of this idiotic idea, because price control has been tried before, first by a Labour government, and then by their Tory successors who went on to consolidate the folly. The background to those repeated attempts to limit price increases was raging inflation, government attempts to justify suppressing wage increases and growing public alarm at the cost of living. Remind you of anything?

When Labour came to government in 1964 it had promised a ‘prices and incomes policy’, involving a measure of government control (at first voluntary) of both. In 1965 Harold Wilson set up a board for this purpose. On prices, the board started with an attempt to control the price of soap, bread and road haulage – don’t ask me why. Voluntary agreement failed, so ministers began issuing legal directives, under the direction of the drunkard George Brown.

When Labour lost the 1970 election, Ted Heath scrapped the board only to go even further, appointing the capable Arthur Cockfield to create and run something called the Price Commission, which was beefed up when Labour returned to power in 1974.

At this point my own memories kick in. They are of the likeable Shirley Williams as Labour’s secretary of state for prices and consumer protection, on TV, holding up a basket of what had been designated the basic household products whose price was to be capped.