The hugely entertaining verbal fireworks currently exploding between Tesco’s Sir Terry Leahy and Waitrose’s Mark Price is a battle between the little and the large.

Mr Price, the self-confessed “chubby grocer”, has stood up to the trim and spritely Sir Terry by boldly going where no other retailer has dared to go before – by unequivocally speaking his mind about Britain’s largest supermarket. As a consequence, the hulking behemoth that is Tesco is now bearing down on the relatively minute Waitrose, so Mr Price will take his comments back.

There is a distinct whiff of the playground swirling around this argument – apparently Sir Terry started it when he made comments about Waitrose’s internet business, Ocado, and then Mr Price made comments about Tesco in a magazine. All this would have faded away quickly enough if Tesco hadn’t decided to take offence and demand a retraction.

The ironic thing is, as the two sides squabble, they seem distracted from the real giant on the horizon – the Competition Commission. With its preliminary findings due out very soon on the supermarket industry, the warring foes might soon have bigger and better things to occupy them.

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