A reader of this newspaper made a very sensible point last week in reaction to news that Lancashire County Council has received £3.5million from the European Social Fund to target at teenagers.

The money is for so-called NEETS – youngsters who are not in employment, education or training and therefore likely to be hanging around and getting themselves into trouble.

The reader suggested that one way in which we could all help the situation would be to ‘buy British’ and thus help generate employment.

This simple concept has a lot going for it.

Many years ago a similar campaign sadly became associated with nationalistic, right wingers who managed to link the idea of supporting our own businesses with hating ‘foreigners.’ We now live in a different world where it’s simple to see the economic benefits of boosting our own industries.

Modern farming methods mean it’s possible to buy many kinds of fruit and vegetables grown in this country, and you should.

Tomatoes are a good example of something that no longer has to come from Spain, Italy or the enormous glasshouses of Holland.

Most produce has seasons and we should observe them anyway even if it does mean, for example, only buying asparagus during the few summer weeks when the tastiest, home-grown stuff is in the supermarkets rather than paying out for the bland stalks from Peru.

British chicken, beef, lamb and pork is all readily available and again much more flavoursome than stuff which has been frozen and shipped from the other end of the earth.

With fish it is true that although something has been caught in the Atlantic the chances are not high that it will have been hauled onto a British boat.

But it’s far more sensible for the future of the planet to buy fish from our own oceans than exotic species that have been air-freighted from south east asia or even further afield.

Although it is increasingly difficult it’s still worth looking to see if other types of goods in our shops are products of UK factories or at least helping British companies.

Our firms need a strong home market as a base from which to reach out to the rest of the world.

Many of the fantastic manufacturers that featured in our own business awards last week showed that only too clearly.