It may seem parochial at the moment, but the London Food Strategy is likely to prove much more than a political attempt to restructure one city’s food provision network.

We have already heard there are plans for Mayor Ken’s congestion charge to drive on to other parts of England. When his strategy for London food is inevitably labelled a major success by all who helped him devise it, this too will no doubt be used as the country’s masterplan by councils desperate to increase their income.

It is therefore worrying that the same old principles and prejudices resurface at the outset.

The first dodgy signal comes in Jenny Jones’s soundbite attack on supermarkets. She may not be entirely wrong, but it is very hard to believe that London Food has any intention of changing what it sees as an imbalance.

The second is an apparent preference for a London food centre that is located out of the capital - an entirely new site that would no doubt line the pockets of a number of influential people. Why not spend the money redeveloping and expanding the facilities that already exist at New Covent Garden and New Spitalfields?

Still fresh in the memory are the near £1 billion debacles of the Millennium Dome and Wembley Stadium. Is Livingstone mad enough to risk another embarrassment?

Don’t bet against it. And anyone sniggering in the provinces beware - you are probably next.

Tommy Leighton