Offensive Customer Services at Tesco and 19 Months out of date food.

codger

J K Galbraith once remarked that it is not enough to administer to the afflicted; afflicting those who do the administering is a citizen's only true protection.

Totalitarian states may unchangingly direct the nation's affairs from the top down. But the history of non-totalitarian states has always been that change comes from the bottom up.

You don't actually have to be much of a historian to know that whether it's the repeal of the Corn Laws (or the Window Tax, or the Poll Tax) when a single voice raised on a single issue is joined by other voices in an ever growing, ever widening chorus, eventually that sound dins painfully in the ears of the politicians and their lawmakers.

And they begin to fret about losing their constituencies. And their well-heeled jobs.

Where consumer self-protection is concerned, then attacking the self-interest of Big Business and Big Government (the two are naturally drawn to each other, if not inextricably interlinked) has to be constant and concerted.

If it isn't, then the field is left wide open to those who most definitely are consistent, and are concerted: lobbyists, a pernicious, furtive breed which hourly, daily, makes special pleadings that have everything to do with profit, and nothing at all to do with people.

The alignment of the UK / EU legislation referred to earlier omits entirely to mention that any and all such legislation exists not because it was driven by Governments of a philanthropic persuasion but because of Governments that were ultimately compelled to balance the pressure from political lobbyists against the counter-pressure from civil campaigners and decided, well, better give in on this one, folks, we really don't want to court a possibly lethal unpopularity if it can be avoided.

(NB: the above assumes the existence of a reasonably intelligent Government, for which reason it's best not to think of Mr Brown and the current administration, and its 10p tax band abolition and sundry other self-inflicted, terminal injuries.)

Usually the faux cynicism of those to whom reality is too troublesome to bother with is wearying. But when such cynicism combines with what paradoxically seems to be a wide-eyed naivety about how legislation actually comes into being, I'm intrigued.

Then again though. . . perhaps Ralph Nader got it wrong after all.

He should've sat quiet and let Henry Ford voluntarily sort out that particular manufacturer's lethal motor cars. Or better still, sat around until Washington aligned with Brussels.

Sssssss

uktim29 wrote: »

It's a combination of playing victim and melodrama. Pretty much ties in with my last few posts. Some people love to think they could have almost died and it's someone else fault just so they can react. Some people actually like nanny state rules because it helps them achieve the above.

It's just been pointed out this morning that most food people will "scream" isn't fit for consumption actually would be. As I said ever other species of animal eat's all it's meat raw. If you've got a cat it will have as well. Have you found you keep needing to replace your cat because it died due to eating a raw mouse or bird, no!

I don't know whether it's ignorance or just a reason to over react but most of the stuff you'll find people complaining about is just a load of rubbish.

agreed

1. it's done to get a freebie, i.e. in this case £5
2. boredom, !!!!!! they were on holiday find something better to do
3. it's Tesco that BIG BAD company, bet if it was corner shop they would have said nowt
4. power trip

this post comes very close to the bad banana saga awhile back

Honeydog

George Santayana

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

uktim29

taxiphil wrote: »

Because new laws don't just "happen". A need has to be identified.

This is achieved by people communicating information to other people.

If nobody "whinged", as you put it, by contacting Watchdog, That's Life, Which Magazine, Trading Standards, MPs, or whoever, how do you think these campaigns would come about (leading eventually to new bills being passed)?

Law makers and law enforcers don't magically "know" there's a problem unless someone actually tells them there's a problem!

If we all taped our mouths shut when things went wrong (as you think we should do), we'd be living in the dark ages.

The "whingers" have enriched your quality of life almost beyond measure, Tim. I could follow you around in a typical day and point to 100 things that have given you a better life, all as a result of people "whinging" at some point in history (even such basic things as your right to vote, or your right to enter a hospital and have an injury treated free of charge).

N.B. It's a red herring to say it's all a case of the UK aligning itself with European laws. In many of the laws I mention in my previous post, the UK led the way long before other European countries made those things compulsory. And even when we did follow the lead of other countries, the same principle still applies - those other countries got those laws thanks to "whingers".

But Phil, we have food standards laws but we still have out of date food. So not much has happened really has it!

taxiphil

Ah, I think we've reached the familiar stage (I've seen it a dozen or so times now) where Tim is completely out of his depth and unable to continue the argument on any intellectual level, so he starts ignoring all the counter-arguments that have been made and starts repeating his already discredited one-liners, because he seems to think the person who has the last word is the person who's won the argument.

Pure troll.

uktim29

Phil, not quite! More it's true. Why else would this thread exist? Looks like your consumer revolution has quite a lot yet to achieve!

taxiphil wrote: »

so he starts ignoring all the counter-arguments that have been made.

You actually started talking about seat belts. Thats got nothing to do with this thread. The reason I've ignored things is because they've got nothing to do with this thread at all!

taxiphil wrote: »

In many of the laws I mention in my previous post, the UK led the way long before other European countries made those things compulsory.

So you praise it when it suits you. It's only a few months ago you were complaining saying UK law for consumers is completely inadequate compared to other European countries.

uktim29

Honeydog wrote: »

George Santayana

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

But in this case what has previously happend hasn't worked. We still have out of date food.

I'm not the one wanting to repeat history here and keep doing the same thing people have done for years thats had no effect (in the case of out of date food before Taxiphil starts talking about something completely different like seat belts). Thats what everyone else seems to want to do!

uktim29

taxiphil wrote: »

Pure troll.

Pure hypocrite. I'm not the one has constantly has to start calling people trolls because I rarely if ever agree with them.

Godders

GOING OFF-TOPIC


Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: While it’s easy to wander off-topic that often prevents newbies finding the information they want quickly and easily (please see this rule). Please keep this thread on topic. If you’d like to discuss non-MoneySaving related topics please continue your discussion in The MoneySavers Arms or Discussion Time. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="%20abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

uktim29

Sssssss wrote: »

if no one hears from me again pls don't worry, it cld be I'm dead as I've just eaten something with yesterdays use by date.

:rotfl: :T :rotfl: :T :rotfl:

I actually don't think the threads gone off topic. It's just got b1tchy.