The Radstock Mayor writes for Nub News:

What in heaven's name is going on?!

Six or seven weeks ago the supermarkets ran out of flour. The mills, we were told were working round the clock to make good the shortfall. Other goods such as long-grain rice disappeared off the shelves, never to return. Today I needed plain white flour but it turns out that everyone else needed the same thing and again there was none to be had. It seems that six weeks has made no difference to demand outstripping supply.

It saddens me that even when the shops open in the morning there are empty shelves; that things people need, such as rice and compost are no longer being supplied.

It reminds one of the hardships people experienced in Soviet Russia under Communism. For an advanced economy such as ours it is extraordinary that we don't seem to be able to marry up supply and demand. There's no back-up system. We might as well go the whole hog and nationalise the supply of essentials!

When I was a schoolboy I took a holiday job helping out in a water mill in South Somerset. Plenty of flour there but no one wanted it since everyone believed that Canadian bread flour was the sustenance of life as we knew it. Our flour was sent to a dog biscuit factory.

I'm no student of Marshall economics but attitudes are important, as exemplified by our local village shopkeeper. When I enquired as to whether she sold toy trolls (a great craze in the '60s) she replied: 'we had some once and everyone wants them but there's no demand.'