PP20: The magic milkman

I remember a day when people laughed at the prospect of buying milk from your supermarket. Why would you? You have the milkman for that, that was his job, you had been ordering from him for decades, so why change? Not only that but the supermarket milk came in those thick plastic containers that you couldn’t use again. At least with your milk bottles the empties were collected for reuse.

Oh those were the days. Unfortunately with the increase in access to personal cars and the loss leading antics of the supermarkets many people abandoned their electrically powered milkman in favour of buying milk at the supermarkets. It seems a great shame that we have lost a system that in so many ways was good for the environment. It’s time the government stepped in and gave the struggling (but slowly recovering) milkman a boost.

Money should be made available to facilitate their recovery and better yet, to get local farmers talking to the distributors to arrange the delivery of other locally grown fresh produce. I suggest offering to abolish VAT on all milk delivered on electric milk floats and in reusable milk bottles. This should make milk delivery a significantly cheaper option than buying it from your supermarket, which should help stem the rising cost of living that many of these green policies, at least in the short term, seem to bring. There is of course no reason why supermarkets themselves can’t get involved in the scheme either and the increased demand should create many new delivery jobs (which might give the now redundant Coinstar repairmen something to do – see below). There is also a social benefit in having a local milkman. It is an unfortunate fact that many elderly people in our society live in almost total isolation, and as daft as it sounds many of them used to look forward to seeing the milkman. Often he (or she - in the 21st century I am sure Britain could handle a milkwomen) is the only person looking out for some people.

I can only see large net benefits from encouraging milk deliveries. It is also a token gesture of friendship towards Britain’s farmers. Which is good because I intend to well and truly batter them in future proposals.