‘Can’t afford a cheese sandwich? Don’t make one!’
A former Kent MP has told poor families they shouldn’t have a cheese sandwich if they can’t afford to make one.
Tory Ann Widdecombe, who represented Maidstone for 10 years, made the comments on TV while saying people don’t have a “right” to low food prices and they should live within their means.
The 75-year-old made the comments on the BBC’s Politics Live while discussing the soaring food prices across the country, which has seen the average price of a cheese sandwich at home rise by 37% to 40p.
Ms Widdecombe, a former Brexit Party MEP who now backs the Reform Party, said people who cannot afford to make a cheese sandwich should not “do the cheese sandwich”.
Presenter Jo Coburn asked: “What do you say to consumers who literally can’t afford to pay for even some of the basics if they have gone up the way that a cheese sandwich has, with all its ingredients?”
She replied: “Well then you don’t do the cheese sandwich ... because we have been decades without inflation we have come to regard it as some sort of given right that our food doesn’t go up.”
The ex-Tory MP laid the blame of food price increases at wage demands being made by the public sector workers, but added historically supermar
kets held the “whip hand” over producers.
Speaking about inflation in the 1970s, she said: “We just have to be as grown-up about this as we can and stop thinking it is solely a UK problem, because it isn’t.
“We also just have to learn the lessons of the past, which is that prices follow wages, follow prices, follow wages.”
Recent data from Which? of 26,000 food and drink products in April – including Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose – found inflation in normal high risers such as milk, butter and bakery items had eased slightly. Overall supermarket food and drink inflation has also started to ease slightly, from 17.2% in March to 17.1% to the end of April, according to the tracker.
Supermarket own-label budget items were up 25% in April on 12 months ago, demonstrating how low-income shoppers are being hit hard by soaring inflation.
Branded goods, meanwhile, showed no change on March, staying at 13.8% higher than last April. Regular own-brand food and premium own-brand food inflation decreased slightly.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had not seen evidence pointing to specific competition concerns in the grocery sector “at this stage”.
A spokesman said: “Given ongoing concerns about high prices, we are announcing the stepping up of our work in the grocery sector to understand whether any failure in competition is contributing to grocery prices being higher than they would be in a well-functioning market.”
CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell added: “Grocery and food shopping are essential purchases. We recognise that global factors are behind many of the grocery price increases, and we have seen no evidence at this stage of specific competition problems.
“But, given ongoing concerns about high prices, we are stepping up our work in the grocery sector to help ensure competition is working well and people can exercise choice with confidence.”
‘We have come to regard it as some sort of given right that our food doesn’t go up’