Who Watches The Watchers?

How long will be forced to put up with the petty tyranny that is the BBC’s Watchdog programme?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for consumer rights. After all I am one myself (a consumer that is). It appears to me however that Watchdog is no longer about helping the consumer by exposing sharp business practice, it’s more about “Shock Jock Journalism” in a blatant grab for ratings and promotion of Anne Robinson’s fading career. To my eye it looks like this programme deliberately sets out with a jaundiced and non-impartial eye to exaggerate the failings or flaws of what are often legitimate, honest, business, while ignoring the stupidity and naivety of their customers. Whatever happened to balanced impartial journalism?

To my mind often the so called “victims” are simple (Okay - stupid) people who have not read or taken the time to acquaint themselves with a company’s terms and conditions. Either that  or where there is an obvious fraud, they have forgotten the first rule of any business transaction “If something looks too good to be true – then is most probably is”. Once the customer falls foul of a clause in the contract they don’t like, or that doesn’t allow them the freedom to withdraw from a contract they freely entered into, they expect to be made the exception to the rule and treated as a special case.

Our society has become choked with those who firmly believe that the rules must be rigorously applied to everyone else, except them. Like spoilt children when they cannot get their way they go crying to Nanny (or in this case Anne Robinson) usually because they want their cake AND their ha’penny. The programme always takes the part of the customer no matter how stupid, lazy or indolent they are and appears to have no concern of the business reputations they besmirch and often ruin by their biased perspective.

Any transaction is in essence a contract. in a contract there are duties, roles and responsibilities assigned to and accepted by both sides. As customers we have as much responsibility to abide by the contract as the seller. Therefore, before we enter into a transaction we have a duty to make sure we know  what the terms and conditions are. We should not gripe, wail and moan when the other party seeks to enforce those conditions we don’t like if we default on our end of the bargain, or simply change our minds.

I believe that it’s time for consumer rights organisations to take a back seat. They should tell people their motto should really be “Caveat Emptor” (Buyer Beware).

Here are some of my rules for safe shopping:

1) Never buy anything where you haven’t instigated the sale.

2) Avoid “cold calls” and people who contact you without your knowledge (even if they know your name, or tell you you have won a prize).

3) Always make sure you understand the terms of the transaction (is there a returns policy? If so, what is it? Is there a guarantee?)

4) If there is a contract READ IT.

5) Don’t be embarrassed about taking as much time as you need. If you want to take the contract away or read it overnight, or if there are clauses you don’t understand ASK.

6) Remember the seller is anxious to sell you the goods. They will still be there the next time you ask for them.

7) Don’t believe the salesman who tells you “You must sign today or the opportunity will be gone”. (Like the opportunity, the likelihood is he salesman will be “Here today and gone tomorrow).

There are of course many other things I could say but in the end it all comes down to common sense. Unfortunately as the old saying has it “Common sense is a very uncommon commodity”.

Alternative Comedy–Don’t Make Me Laugh

The other night I watched some of the latest episode of Channel 4’s satirical comedy show 10 o’clock live. This program features the odious Charlie Booker who appears to be the latest in a line of so called “Alternative Comedians”. If he, and those such as Ben Elton, Alexei Sayle, and Jo Brand are to be believed then for “Alternative Comedy” we should read “Neo-Marxist Leninist polemic.

It appears that all that is necessary to qualify as an alternative comedian is to have a ten minute rant about the evils of  Conservative capitalism. In the 1980’s some comedian’s entire act consisted of “Mrs Thatcher – what a bitch!!” or “The Tories – Evil, posh upper class swine who are hell bent on closing down The North and raping manual workers”.

Foe all those trendy left wing, metropolitan Marxist, so called comedians, here is my “Alternative, Alternative Comedy” act.

“Tony Blair – twelve years of stealth taxes, slavish devotion to European health & safety, and the giving away of our sovereignty to Brussels.

The bribery of Europe with our money so that Tony could buy his way to the presidency of Europe (thankfully to no avail). The waging of illegal foreign wars at the behest of America which has left us the prime target of fanatical Muslim Jihadists. The ruination of businesses and entrepreneurship by the imposition of a centralist, bureaucratic behemoth Soviet style state.

The mental and cerebral castration of two generations of young people by the recruiting of crazy left wing teachers who thought it better that children were taught" that “no one looses” and who were allowed to re-write history in a great orgy of Stalinist revisionism. Teachers who in fact didn’t teach, so that children left school without the basic ability to read, write and do sums.

Who’s idea was it that 50% of pupils should go to university? – all that lead to was the dumbing down of our tertiary educational institutions.

The nanny state; a police force that has become a quasi- military militia whose purpose seems to no longer that of deterring crime and catching criminals but of acting as a direct arm of government or of the revenue.

Tony Blair’s government took away rights that had ben enshrined in our constitution since Magna Carta.

• The right to trial by jury (no longer applicable for certain offences).
• The right of habeas corpus (they wanted to lock people up with out charge or without trial for 90 days)
• Double Jeopardy (if you are found innocent the government can now keep bringing charges for the same offence until they get the judgement they want).

Then, when his Tonyness finally went, Gordon Brown and Ed Balls embarked on a spending spree (with borrowed money which they knew we had no hope of repaying in anyone's lifetime) on a Socialist experiment in social re-engineering. They also tried to use the public purse to create make-work “jobs for the boys” in local government “services” in a blatant attempt to stuff the ballot box.

Let’s not get into New Labour’s disastrous immigration policy (or complete lack thereof). opening our doors to a flood of Eastern European economic migrants who contribute nothing to our economy or cultural life but were/are just a drain on the public purse.

The entire doctrine of “Multiculturalism” – forcing the majority to give up its rights and privileges in favour of ethnic minorities.”

I could go on but let’s face it, it’s just not funny anymore and we all know that no one is laughing now.

So, to all the left wing Alternative Comedians out there – Do you still think cheap shots at the right are funny? “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”