Last week I attempted to buy some trousers for work. Being under 50, M&S hasn't got much for me, so I wandered the city shopping centre past Burton (tax avoider Philip Green's Arcadia group), Next (whose Chief Exec Simon Wolfson is a Tory peer who voted for - amongst other things - tax credit cuts which will affect his own poorly-paid retail staff), Topman (Arcadia again) and then New Look (owned by super-invisible Brait SE who own chunks of a number of large companies yet don't even have a Wikipedia page - you can guarantee they're up to no good). There's no point trying H&M because they only do trousers for tall skinny men (sadly I am below-average height and stocky build....or fat, if you prefer). The department stores just sell the brands I don't approve of and other brands for older or wealthier men. And I'm not going near Primark.
I tried again a few days later, this time I did try H&M (there were none in my size) and M&S (their 'slim fit' looked ridiculously baggy on me).
Both times, I came back empty-handed and I still need new trousers for work.
Another issue is supermarkets. I don't like Tesco because of the way they led the land-grabbing, business-closing takeover of UK supermarkets and fiddle their figures to fool who everyone into thinking they were still doing great despite suffering the obvious consequences of opening massive stores too close to existing stores. I don't like Asda because they're part of Walmart and don't seem to care about fair trade or animal welfare (there are NO fair trade coffees in our local Asda and barn eggs are given much more preferential position than free-range, plus there appear to be no higher welfare meat that I've found, let alone free-range options). We used to shop at Morrisons but now they've done a deal with Amazon (tax avoider who treats warehouse staff and presumably other workers like scum) and recently their advertising agency sent out a casting call for actors "...not at all like the characters from Benefits Street....And nobody from Liverpool, please.” Presumably such instructions must have come from the client or be representative of their preferences at least. That just leaves Sainsbury's and that means travelling further and polluting the environment along the way.
I could go on to mention specific food and drink brands I've boycotted for various dirty deeds but I simply don't have the energy.
Why do so many of our retailers have to be such shitbags? And why don't more people care enough to vote with their feet?
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