Just how much choice do we need?

This is the choice of baked beans on offer at our local supermarket. Just how many different tins of beans could anyone possibly want? And this is just beans.

There's too much choice in our consumer driven society and I'm as guilty as the next, but there is also too much blind acceptance of the situation. Aldi apparently stocks 1500 lines, Tesco 40000!

I'm in a bit of a reactionary mood today as I've been working on the website "Saving Haygate Fields" which is part of a campaign to stop speculative property developers building on a greenfield site in my home town of Wellington in Shropshire.

See 22nd August 2013, 24th August 2013 and our Save Haygate Fields website

I find that up and down the country dozens of groups of people are fighting off developers who want to build houses on our countryside. It's got to be stopped. Companies who are based miles away are using planning laws to over ride the wishes of local people and impose on communities what they think we need.

It's becoming a political issue now as some of these developments are proposed in the constituencies of very senior government politicians up to and including Mr D Cameron himself. If this continues Tory councillors and MPs are in for a very rough ride in the coming months.

It's not that houses aren't needed, they are, but in a sustainable number, taking into account local circumstances and the wishes of local people who don't want outsiders determining their future.

Mind you, the last week has done my heart good and shows the great British public at its best. Remembrance Sunday and the Poppy Appeal, the funds raised for the Philippines Appeal and then the generosity shown to Children in Need shows ordinary people at their best and contrasts sharply with the petty politicking, greed and weasely words form people in positions of power and authority.