Love in the aisles

Julie Burchill on why she loves Tesco

The idea that Tesco has always been a corner-shop-crushing colossus is a lie, one perpetuated by bitter, third-rate businessmen who would dearly love to have achieved a quarter of what Cohen did but lacked the ability and luck to pull it off, and who now seek to clothe their envy and hypocrisy in the rhetoric of care for the community. But with a bit less moaning and a bit more ingenuity, what's to stop them doing the same? Instead they would rather spend their time whining, in the manner of one Ken Stevens of the Federation of Small Businesses in East Sussex to the Brighton Argus newspaper, "Where they start selling everything cheaper, that can be very damaging." Gosh, selling things cheap to people - burn them down, let's, and make the world safe for greedy, over-charging rotters!

I've had something of a love-hate relationship with Burchill over the years. When she's on form she's as sharp as a pin and funny too but she lost the plot a while ago and her love affair with Israel turned my stomach. But, ever the fair-minded reader, I have to admit that she's back on form with this piece. It helps that her first paragraph is spent ridiculing that irritating, self-regarding fruitcake, Jeanette Winterson.

Via Tim Worstall