If we all huddle together and wave our arms and shout and pretend to be a really big animal, perhaps we can scare the bear away.

Such is the naive logic behind the co-ordinated support for the Royal Bank of Scotland cash call and the Bank of England's bailout of Britain's mortgage and consumer credit market.

Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England (BoE), will have been aware of the plans to shore up RBS with a £12 billion rights issue and his announcement that he would swap mortage and consumer debt of uncertain value for sovereign-guaranteed Treasury paper was timed to give extra oomph to a display of City solidarity.

Cue: huge sighs of relief on Moorgate and Threadneedle Street at the launch of an old-fashioned clubby underwriting.

In the 1980s, a cabal of merchant banks and stockbrokers would stand tall in the market in soaring pinstripes to back a big issue and share the prize. Today, the suits are beige and foreign - Goldman, Merrill and UBS - but the fraternal embrace is still oiled by a jolly good commission (2 per cent) worth £240 million - easy money.

It's just a bit of underpinning, says RBS. The institutions will rally to the cause and buy the stock or be shunned for evermore.

But will the promise of a fat fee really persuade these bankers that the bear is banished? Or will they scream and scatter at first glimpse of a Grizzly.

Try to imagine you are a banker: would you now take the advice of Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, and open your books to all comers?

There is a hue and cry about Libor - the interest rate at which banks lend to each other is too high, some say. At 5.9 per cent, it is almost a full percentage point above the BoE's lending rate and a standard variable mortgage is a full point higher still.

What rate is a true reflection of the financial risk of Britain in hock, living on a paycheck three months hence - is it 6, 7 or 8 per cent?

Consider a typical affluent borrower: a middle-ranking City trader with a £700,000 interest-only mortgage acquired two years ago at a fixed rate of 5 per cent.

He made one capital repayment using his bonus, his credit card bill has ballooned to £15,000 (Christmas, skiing holiday), he has no savings, he has school fees to pay and he wants to remortgage. Would you lend and at what rate?

A year ago, that City worker was an attractive prospect, but no more. The world has moved on, but some people are still stuck in the mud.

Crunch time

Something odd is happening down the supermarket aisle.

Branded food manufacturers are raising wholesale prices at a faster pace than retailers can slap new stickers on tins.

Multinational food combines, such as Kraft, Nestlé and Unilever, are passing on the burden of dearer food to the retailer - worldwide price rises in grains, oils and dairy products - but dear old Tesco and Asda are not quite managing to make you and I pick up the bill at the till.

Is the shoe finally on the other foot?

Are the big, bad supermarket chains really taking it on the chin and trimming their grotesquely fat margins? It seems incredible, but recent sales figures from Nestlé and Unilever are unusually impressive.

The Swiss group announced a solid 6 per cent rise in sales in the first quarter, but the underlying revenue figures in food and beverages are more striking.

Organic growth, which excludes dollar gyrations and the effect of aquisitions and disposal, was a hefty 9.8 per cent, but real internal growth, which represents the core volume increase was 4.2 per cent, suggesting that Nestlé raised prices by 5.6 per cent during the period.

ABF is putting up break prices and Unilever, too, is pumping up sales, passing on 3 per cent in price rises while recent inflation figures show odd discrepancies.

According to the March UK Producer Price Index, food makers are billing retailers 8.5 per cent more than a year ago, but the Consumer Price Index shows food items up only 5.5 per cent despite big increases in energy and other costs as well as food.

Is this merely a time lag or is the great British superstore losing its bottle?

You have to take government figures with a pinch of salt.

We don't know how much food companies are handing back to retailers in kickbacks for promotions, shelf positioning and bizarre under-the-table payments that make up the dodgy business of supermarket buying.

Government figures may not capture all of this stuff, but what we do know is that the branded food firms are not yet being hurt by chaos in the farmyard and some are even profiting.

This could be a one-off adjustment; after years of food-price deflation and crimped margins, producers are being allowed room to breathe.

Within six months, it will be over and the pricing cosh will be back, say some analysts, as weakening consumer markets compel retailers to tempt shoppers with bargains. Moreover, Nestlé gave warning yesterday that food inflation was tough in emerging markets where processed foods are luxuries, not staples.

But what if food commodity inflation is a fundamental shift rather than a cyclical adjustment? If the world is facing a longer-term problem with food production, then who will be the winners and losers?

My guess is that retailers could be losers as pricing power moves back nearer primary producers.

Grain traders, agribusiness groups and fertiliser manufacturers are making hay in the present environment, while food producers with strong brand portfolios are doing well, demanding price concessions from retailers.

If primary producer pressure remains strong, retailers could be in a bind, squeezed between a less affluent consumer (who still needs to eat) and food producers demanding more money for less cake.

carl.mortished@thetimes.co.uk

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