Barefaced Cheek

Paul Mason, chief executive of Somerfield, has recently said:

"We are trying to create a better, simpler, faster Somerfield. We are trying to combine the operational effectiveness of a Tesco with the community credentials of what the Co-op used to be about.”

"What the Co-op used to be about"! When Somerfield is owned by, and run for the benefit of, its customers instead of shareholders, and when the concept of community is written into its very identity, then Somerfield can start lecturing the Co-op about community credentials.

And this comes from the supermarket that offered incentives to managers who can cause a local Co-op supermarket to close, and whose internal documents admit that they under-perform the Co-op in terms of range, cleanliness, store layout and checkout queues.