Hindsight is a wonderful thing, dearly beloved.

By the time what may or may not be the correct edition of The Grocer flops soggily on to your doormat, you will know whether it is Smiling Boy Cameron or the dishevelled and spent El Gordo, puppeted by Cleggover, who is in charge of this woebegone realm.

And you will therefore also know the fate of one Donald Pumsey, that most loyal and incorruptible of public servants. Let me be the first to admit that the signs are not good.

The Deathstar rarely makes a wrong call (largely I suspect because the Yookay has for some years been effectively run from Cheshunt, Herts) and so it was portentous to say the least that while Gordo was left to wallow in solitude around the faux-posh aisles of Tesco West Ken., the Boy David was being treated to the personal ministrations of Darth Leahy himself albeit in some godforsaken Extra in Wales.

God knows what Clegg was doing. A bit of horizontal gardening is a fairly safe bet, and that of course is a concern for yours truly.

Until now I have had a monopoly on comforting the fair spouses of those ministers whose duties force them to work late into the night. Indeed I have seen it as something of a duty. So Nick the P**** [do they really call him that? Ed.] will probably move faster than Kylie-flavoured beer in shafting DRIP, the Pumster and pretty much everything else on legs.

So it's a pretty safe bet that three years of tireless work on behalf of the downtrodden consumer is about to come to naught, and I will have to return to my constituency in, erm, well, you know

Who, then, will check the big four? Who will ensure pork pies in your average c-store are sold before they can walk off on their own? That British chickens are placed ahead of immigrant fowl on the housing lists?

Here's a clue. It ain't gonna be the FSA, the OFT, the Competition Commission, the Supplier Ombudsman...

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