• Tell that to the people of Sheringham! For ten years they have been resisting plans for a huge town centre Tesco. Tesco made a secret deal with North Norfolk council officials to let the development go ahead. Who elected these officials? Who elected Tesco? The details of the deal are shrouded by a confidentiality clause. The whole thing stinks. Even without the whiff of corruption, supermarkets like Tesco use their long pockets to keep challenging planning regulations and wear local councils down.

• Tell that to the dairy farmers - if you can find one. In 1995 there were 35,000 in the country. Now it's down to 19,000 and a thousand more leave farming every year. No wonder. The price they got from the supermarkets for a litre of milk has gone down from 24½p to 18½p over the past ten years. The price in the supermarkets went up 10% over the same period. As we know from a previous Competition Commission report, this is because the supermarkets were running a racket on milk prices.

• Tell that to the impoverished workers on plantations in the third world. They pick the bananas British supermarkets sell. Supermarket buyers are canny enough to bid the price right down. Who pays? Banana Link has revealed that Fresh Del Monte sacked all 4,300 workers on its Monte Libano planatation in Costa Rica in 1999. Then they recruited a new workforce on reduced wages and benefits. Such was the cost-cutting success of this blitzkrieg that they are doing it all over. Not to be outdone, Chiquita has cut labour costs on its plantations from 5% of the total in 2004 to just 2% in 2006

Supermarkets can sell cheaper than small independent shops because they can buy cheaper. They use their bullying power over small farmers and other producers. Supermarket buyers can be posted from wines to perfumes at a moment's notice, and don't feel the need to know anything about either. All they know is the bottom line. If they promote a supplier's stuff, they have to 'pay to play,' for instance for a special promotion. It's actually very difficult to find out about these deals. The suppliers won't talk because of a 'climate of fear', as Joanna Blythman points out in her book 'Shopped'. And the voluntary code of practice the supermarkets boast about is just a figleaf for their bullying behaviour. The Competition Commission admits the supermarkets have a 'complex monopoly' over their suppliers, but it doesn't propose to do anything about it.

The Church of England (itself a substantial landlord) has recently complained that the supermarkets are 'squeezing farmers to death'. In one case they put vegetables on special offer and only paid the farmer £7 a tonne instead of £14 for the duration. In effect the farmer was paying for the shop to compete with their rivals.

The  Commission also recognises the problem when one supermarket gains a local monopoly. Then they can and do put prices up. Bicester now sports six branches of Tesco. A resident comments, "I probably do 95% of my shopping at Tesco, and that's only because I have no choice." They're thinking of renaming the place 'Tescotown'.

• Supermarkets use their buying power to force down suppliers' prices and thus the wages of workers and living standards of small producers.

• Supermarkets rip the heart out of local communities with out-of-town developments and by cloning every high street.

They're not doing anything that capitalism hasn't always wanted to do. But they are capitalism in its modern form. Many criticisms of supermarkets are really criticisms of capitalism. For instance out-of town developments mean you need a car to get there. Road-building and the carbon emissions from cars contribute to ruining the environment. But modern capitalism, with shift working and distances from work to home, means you really need a car to get by. It's capitalism that's ruining the environment, not just supermarkets.

What has the Commission got to say for itself? It has noted that the supermarkets have all built up little land banks - 520 squirrelled away. They do this for two reasons. First they can bully elected councils into letting them march in to town. Secondly they can stop their rivals muscling in on the territory. Idiotically the Competition Commisssion concludes that planning restrictions should be overridden by the government. (This would require legislation.) So the answer to supermarket power is more supermarkets! No wonder when the Commission whitewash was published, Tesco shares soared in relief.

A lot of people find supermarket shopping convenient. Supermarkets are here to stay. But they're unaccountable and they wield too much power. Shops should not be able to effectively dictate wages and conditions, even to workers continents away. The big supermarket chains should be taken over and run in the interests of the people.