ASDA – owned by town centre cleanser Wal-Mart – has bought 12 former Safeway stores in Northern Ireland. It promises to use locally-sourced produce – although the terms and conditions were not, of course, mentioned. Regardless, should Asda/Wal-Mart decide to expand into the green belt, it is unlikely to meet any opposition from NIO Minister Lord Rooker – who seems happy to ignore planning refusals recommended by local civil servants.But then Labour is heavily influenced by the vested interests of some of its own members, and has gone out of its way to assist the larger superstores in GB – to the detriment of town centres, local producers, some of the workforce and independent retailers. Business is big business for Labour. Wal-Mart dwarfs even Tesco, and knows it can lobby for whatever it likes. It wouldn’t be here otherwise.
Perhaps Lord Rooker will find, as he noted in a previous life as an agriculture minister powerless to bring about a moratorium on GM crops, that he is no longer in the driving seat.
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