George Monblot writes this week in the Guardian about the way
The competition authorities have been taken over by the superstores.The way that the Blair govenment has not touched:
The policy imposed by Margaret Thatcher's administration - which later came to be known as the Tebbit doctrine - determined that the public interest could be reinterpreted as "the consumer interest", and even this could be defined in the narrowest terms.I vividly remember Tebbit sneering at those who supported Fairtrade on Panorama. And now we have a culture of intimidation of some suppliers and the extinction of small shops and thier associated support environment:
Even the OFT recognises that the wholesalers who supply the small shops are approaching the "tipping point", beyond which they go out of business. This would trigger a chain reaction through the independent sector, pulling down thousands of businesses. The network of small farmers, wholesale markets, dairies, auctioneers, news distributors and small abattoirs, with all its expertise and investment, is collapsing at an extraordinary rate. It is hard to see how it could ever be replaced.
The colleague discount card for us is a wonderful saver of money - but it ties us to a particular shop even more..
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