Competition! What competition?

Commentators from right-of-centre politics will often quote the mantra that competition in the market place forces up quality and drives down prices for the consumer.

Driving home from Yatton station yesterday I noticed that petrol prices at Tesco had risen by 1p from the previous day. I made a mental note to top-up my dangerously empty fuel tank. This morning I made my way to Morrisons petrol station as it has been consistenly lower than Tesco in recent months. Imagine my surprise to find that Morrisons had also raised their fuel prices. By how much? Exactly 1p.

How concidental it is that two independent companies had decided that their fuel costs had risen by the same amount on the same day? Where is the competition? Seems more like collaboration to me.