Archive for the ‘Consumer matters’ Category
“A Dog Helps Dog World”
November 10th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
Ed Mayo – who was the founding Chief Executive and a colleague of mine at Consumer Focus – has just become Secretary General of Co-operatives UK. He’s drafted a kind of manifesto that rejects the ‘dog eats dog’ world of so much of contemporary society and presented a kind of ‘dog helps dog’ model based […]
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
Stuck in the post
September 17th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
The Consumer Focus Board papers posted to me in central London on 8 September reached me today in north-west London on 17 September! Perhaps I should take it up with the consumer body for postal services. Aaah, that would be Consumer Focus then.
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
National Consumer Week
September 14th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
Here in Britain today sees the start of the National Consumer Week. An important part of this is the “Know your consumer rights” campaign which kicks off today. Since Consumer Focus (on whose Board I sit) is one of the campaign partners, our CEO Ed Mayo will be speaking alongside Kevin Brennan MP, Consumer Affairs […]
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
How should films be rated?
May 1st, 2009 by Roger Darlington
I’m a big movie fan and often go to the cinema. Recently I have seen the film “Watchmen” [my review here] twice: once in London and then again in Prague. As a result of seeing the same work – one with a fair bit of violence – in two jurisdictions where the rating was different, […]
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (3)
“Consumer Kids”
January 30th, 2009 by Roger Darlington
After all my years living in London, yesterday was my first visit to the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. I was there for the lauch of a new book called “Consumer Kids” and subtitled “How big business is grooming our children for profit”. The authors of the book are Ed Mayo and Agnes Nairn. […]
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
New Year’s Honours List
December 31st, 2008 by Roger Darlington
I confess that I never pay much attention to the Honours Lists, but I’ve just learned that one of my colleagues at Consumer Focus has been recognised in this year’s New Year’s Honours List. The organisation’s director of international policy advocacy, Jill Johnstone, has been awarded an OBE for services to consumers. Jill has devoted […]
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
Post early for Christmas
December 15th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
During my two and a half years on the Postwatch Council, I did no less than 66 media interviews. I’m now on the Board of Consumer Focus – which took over Postwatch at the beginning of October – and this morning I did my first media interview for them. It was a live interview at […]
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
And the winner is …
December 9th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
It’s sometime since I’ve run a quiz but I volunteered to run one this week for an away day in Birmingham organised for the Boards of Consumer Focus, Consumer Focus Scotland, Consumer Focus Wales and Consumer Focus Northern Ireland Post. We had fun but, since economic times are hard, I decided that the prize for […]
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
A sad metaphor for our consumerist times
November 29th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
At dawn this morning, a 34-year-old employee was trampled to death as sales-hungry shoppers rushed into a Wal-Mart store in New York. More information here.
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
Which markets most disappoint the consumer?
November 17th, 2008 by Roger Darlington
It’s National Consumer Week in the UK and the Government has launched a long-awaited survey on which markets are top and bottom when it comes to a fair deal for consumers. The measure used is something called the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI). Overall, the most poorly rated markets were: Gas and electricity, Private pension plans, […]
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (3)