August 18: Thatcher’s board games left milk in a mess

From: Roger Backhouse, Orchard Road, Upper Poppleton, York.

BILL Carmichael is right to draw attention to the plight of Britain’s dairy farmers but this is one that’s been in the making long before sanctions against Russia hit sales (The Yorkshire Post, August 14).

Those with long memories will recall the Milk Marketing Board, a quango set up by the post war Labour government to ensure a supply of milk to towns and give a guaranteed price to farmers. The farming community I grew up in liked it and milk supplies never failed.

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If occasionally cumbersome, the MMB worked well under Labour and Conservative administrations until in a fit 
of ideological pique the Thatcher government abolished it 
in favour of a free market free- for-all.

Of course that meant supermarkets had the whip hand, milk prices fell and dairy farmers went out of business with Britain sucking in yet more milk product imports. It’s a nasty parallel with what happened to Britain’s manufacturing, instigated by a supposedly “patriotic” government.

Bringing back the MMB would be a practical solution.

Perhaps Jeremy Corbyn should adopt it to win the farmers’ votes.

I live in hope....

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