Many years ago, just after Boris Yeltsin had abolished rationing and freed up food prices, I was in Russia when a little old granny was interviewed just before Easter. She wanted to know why egg prices were going up just before everyone wanted them to dye for the Easter festivities. Oh how we laughed about that, for of course the miracle of supply and demand means that when more people want something prices will rise. Not that we could expect someone subjected to 70 years of communism to quite get that.

This isn't something that's going to happen in our much more sophisticated age and place of course. Everyopne's far too well informed about how the world works these days:

Majority of parents back holiday price caps - new ITV poll More than half of parents say inflated holiday prices should be capped so they are not forced to take their children out of school for cheaper getaways, a new survey for ITV reveals.

Well, I guess that explains the Labour Party then if more than half of those old enough to breed are quite so clueless about the most basic concept in all economics, the price system.

So how do we go about remedial education for half the population?