I want to talk about self-service machines in Huntingdon supermarkets. I guess many people think they are a good idea and certainly the supermarkets themselves would sell them on the idea that they speed up queues for customers and that that is a good thing.

Here is a different thought, most people who use these machines only have few items and so don't really save much time. What they do you is allow the supermarket to employ less staff and reduce their costs (do you think they will pass on their savings to us?). Less jobs, more machines. Less jobs means more unemployment, more unemployed means more taxes, more taxes means you pay more for things.

So where is the benefit to us except a few seconds less in a queue? I vote for longer queues in supermarkets, more people in jobs and curvy bananas.