A recent headline in a national daily read “Consumers hunting bargains turn to supermarkets”.

Where else would they turn? One can hardly miss the irony, however, of this latter-day rehabilitation. After a decade of media-inspired vilification and near-constant regulatory attention, supermarkets are now the big attraction for cash-strapped consumers. While rumblings started back in the 1980s, the anti-supermarket lobby didn’t really get into top gear until the ‘Rip-Off Britain’ agitation surfaced in the Murdoch press circa 1998. And that, you may recall, quickly metamorphosed into an obsessive interest in the big four.

These behemoths were alleged to be making excessive profits by ripping off customers and crushing suppliers. A spineless OFT inquiry “could not be certain that excessive profits were not being made”. A more robust investigation by the Competition Commission, however, dismissed the “profiteering” charge and concluded that, broadly, supermarkets were serving shoppers well.

The ink was barely dry when foot and mouth broke out in March 2001. Supermarkets were to blame, critics claimed, because their distribution systems demanded that sheep be transported over long distances, thereby spreading the disease. In reality its origins lay on a disgracefully unhygienic farm that no supermarket would have gone near, while the big four had long since stopped buying stock in open markets.

Next up was the great obesity angst. Once again it was the supermarkets’ fault for selling too much junk food too cheaply. So the salvation-through-misery school began to clamour for less choice, more regulation and, by implication, higher prices. Yet excessive consumption is a complex cultural problem going way beyond the contents of supermarket shelves.

Finally, we have the great anti-alcohol crusade. Supermarkets are selling too much cheap booze, so let’s impose minimum prices on all alcohol. No thought given, of course, as to how you would concoct this bureaucratic monster, still less get it past the EU competition authorities or ensure compliance in 60,000 c-stores and other outlets. And there’s little chance it would solve the problem anyway.

So there it is – a sorry tale of stupidity, driven by fear and envy. Hopefully we will now hear a bit less from this motley crew of malcontents, but don’t count on it.

Kevin Hawkins is an independent retail consultant.