Every time I am forced to listen to whingefests such as You and Yours, I wonder if it’s time to invent the mirror image of a consumer affairs programme — where Britain’s largest businesses get to expose the behaviour of their worst customers.
Every time I am forced to listen to whingefests such as You and Yours, I wonder if it’s time to invent the mirror image of a consumer affairs programme — where Britain’s largest businesses get to expose the behaviour of their worst customers. ‘And, in a packed programme this week, Tesco launches a shocking investigation into the behaviour of Mr M. Jones of Rotherham after he ignores repeated requests not to urinate in the drinks aisle …and we finally get to ask J. Chambers of Herne Hill: “Isn’t it time you paid your gas bill?”’
In the same way, I sometimes feel like applying for funding to start an anti-privacy lobby. This would campaign for more personal information to be made public.
Why would anyone support this? Well, provided you are not one of the offenders, ask yourself if it is fair that every time you buy clothes at Marks & Spencer (or anywhere else) you must subsidise that small proportion of women — they are almost all women — who are serial clothes returners? The kind of people who buy five outfits on a Friday and return four on a Monday, one smelling of cigarettes? Would it be fairer if retailers could spot people with an excessive returns habit and made them shoulder the costs? Or do we prefer shopping to stay anonymous?
All I am suggesting is that the privacy debate is complicated, and anyone pronouncing on it must weigh a complex mixture of costs and benefits.
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