Not all that long ago, something hideous and wretched called the Daily Mail actually did something useful for once. It launched a campaign to try and ban the plastic supermarket bag because herons and tortoises were munching on them and as a result were choking to death.

I, as someone who detests the sight of some ignorant woman in a beige coat looking at her empty packet of Hula Hoops and then proceeding to drop it on the floor, hoping a Lithuanian in a fluorescent jacket will rush to her side and pick it up with some litter pincers, jumped up and down with joy like a fat chick in a tracksuit at the sight of a mountain of Dairy Milk. I can bear the sight of people mowing down dogs on footpaths with their bicycles, and watching someone riding a bull through a supermarket just leaves me shaking my head, but people who drop litter? They deserve to be stripped of their skin with an apple peeler, before having acupuncture induced on them whilst being constantly covered in salt.

It would seem that Gordon Brown was also happy with the Daily Mail campaign, mainly, me thinks, because he was so busy saying “yes yes och aye!” to Brussels that recently hasn’t had time to inflict any new laws. Whatever the reason, it certainly made sure Alasdair “look at me and my bushy eyebrows cos I’m a boring old fart” Darling included a charge of 5p on every plastic bag used in supermarkets in his yearly budget last week.

5p. Hmm. Well, that may be expensive for, say, a vicar or an asylum seeker, but to the rest of us (a large majority, you surely must agree) that’s not exactly going to put us in major financial debt. It certainly won’t do much for resolving the Northern Bank crisis, nor will it make us think much about the environment. In fact, I’ve just looked in my wallet and I counted eleven 5p coins. Any more and I might as well buy the whole stack of plastic bags in Sainsbury’s.

And what exactly does this charge achieve? I haven’t worked out the answer, but one thing I can say is that a charge presumes that you’ve planned a shopping trip. Fine, but what if you’re travelling home from work, say, and suddenly you were hungry? “Damn it, I wish I had that plastic bag I bought last week, cos I don’t half fancy a packet of Minstrels now!”

Of course, one could forget the charge and completely ban the bag altogether. Not only would this put an immediate stop to the problem, but it’d also mean that Paris Hilton, a woman so plastic she might as well have “Tesco” stamped across her head if it weren’t entirely covered in the words “syphilis seller”, would be prohibited from these shores forever.

Yet even here there is a problem. What do you replace the bag with? Unless you are Peter Kay or Michelle McManus, you probably won’t be able to carry all your shopping under your armpits, and thus need some other way of holding all your goods. A wicker basket? Oh, don’t be stupid. They’re for milk maids with Cornish accents. The Women’s Institute have suggested that we could all have bags made from hemp and wheat, which would either then be made into biscuits after use or degrade a lot quicker than the 2000-year plastic bag. Very novel, Mavis. But tell me, you stupid old nag, how is anyone going to be able to mass produce these? Via grannies sitting by the fireplace listening to The Archers? I don’t think so, somehow.
So, what about the brown bag then? Easy to mass-produce, easy to degrade, easy to carry lots of things. Yes, but only when the weather is like that of a severe drought. Any hint of rain, and you might as well be carrying your shopping in a sand castle.

Oh dear. It seems that the bag will have to stay for a bit longer. But hang on, why should this campaign stop at just plastic bags? What about the products sold inside the shop?
Yes, I understand you cannot exactly do a pick and mix when it comes to crisps and Smarties, but take for example the cauliflower. Michael Jackson may need an oxygen tent around him 24-7 just to keep him alive, but the cauliflower doesn’t.
“Oh, but the plastic keeps it fresher for longer” I can hear you cry. Hmm. But do you honestly like the idea of eating a 3-year-old vegetable that, had it not been for some horrid air-tight packaging, would have rotted away? Urgh.

But everything seems to come in plastic packaging. Button mushrooms. Magazines. Those silly weeds that women with high-blood pressure eat at breakfast instead of cornflakes. And dare I even mention the Easter Egg? Two hundred tons of petrochemicals diverted from where they should be (the tank of a car) to puff up a chocolate egg so small it wouldn’t even stretch the womb gates of a wren.

It looks like, while the intention is good, the plan was actually a foiled one before it began.