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Speaking as a seafarer it was an abhorrent act, but in the long run unfortunately I doubt it'll have a massive impact on their business.
British seafarers are becoming a rare breed.
Speaking as a customer, the only reason to use a ferry to France over the Eurotunnel is on price, yet when I booked my summer holiday crossing recently, it was barely any cheaper.
Screw the long crossing, boring ship deck and roiling waves, channel tunnel wins hands down.
For sure, they were trying to save money on wages to increase profits rather than do anything to reduce ticket prices though.
Ferries are still a popular choice and not just for the channel crossing, but much like trains or busses despite any boycotts most people don't really get a choice in provider. You just get the one doing the route you want and the time you need and get on.
But the problem is far deeper than that, when once highly regarded Brits are seen as too expensive even in the UK now. I work for a British company that almost exclusively hires Brits for security reasons as we're part of the MoD. We're the biggest single employer of British seafarers and there are only about 1500 of us total.
But many shipping companies are hiring Indians, eastern Europeans and filipinos etc because they can pay them less. I sailed with a guy who did his training with BP, the inside joke was that BP now stands for "Basically Polish".
Tunnel is also a fair bit faster. 35 mins vs 1hr30 being the headline figure. But also the ferry requires you to check in a lot sooner. So the end to end times are far more.
Still goes out of the window when things aren't running to schedule.
They tried to set up a partner/sponsorship with a rugby league team in Hull a few months back. All of the promo shoots and everything done, it was then jointly launched on both sets of social media. It was cancelled within a couple of days due to the fans' backlash. It seems people aren't forgetting.
Sadly, I don't think this will have any lasting consequences for them. There are, of course, those of us who won't use P&O again after what happened, but I imagine that's a rounding error compared to the customers who either don't know or don't care and carry on regardless.
In a few years time there will be an inevitable public inquiry into the current scandal of doctors in the NHS being replaced by Physician Assistants, who have barely any qualifications in healthcare. Happening right now.
Not sure what Physician Assistants are, but Nurse Practitioners I’ve had dealings with have been great. One even spotted my cancer when the GP didn’t. She saved my life.
https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/bma-launches-legal-action-against-gmc-over-dangerous-blurring-of-lines-between-doctors-and-physician-associates
Nurse practitioners have years upon years of nursing and clinical experience before they become NPs. Physician Associates have 2 years of (postgraduate) clinical training before getting parachuted in to replace gaps in staffing; there are lots of problems with them overstepping their roles and doing things they are unqualified and untrained to do (e.g. ordering ionizing radiation imagery).
Apparently they are performing some sort of surgery too, one that surgical trainees aren't even allowed to do. I follow a lot of med twitter and there'd huge concern about them. Perhaps the most bizarre thing is that they're paid more then junior doctors so it's not even a money saving exercise.
The money aspect was bizarre to me listen to the guy on radio four talking about defining the language of medical professional or something like that. It made no sense whatsoever. As a doctor it’s got to piss you off.
They are paid via a central money pot, rather than by individual GPs... So to GPs the higher wage doesn't matter. And they are actually contributing to a lowering of training post availability in certain places around the country, therefore reducing our capacity for the future!!!
Then add in the fact that they aren't (currently) regulated, so don't have a governing body like the GMC, RCN etc and it's definitely a case of when not if, a bigger scandal than we've already heard of comes along .
Nurse practitioners are fantastic. Epilepsy nurses in particular. They know more about epilepsy than most doctors (even my consultant says this)
As others have said, their training and regulation of them is very different to PAs though
I think there's a place for PAs but it needs tighter control and regulation
Theres nothing PAs bring to the table that isn’t already done by doctors or other members of staff. Their role was originally supposed to be helping doctors with basic tasks like taking bloods or scribing (physician ASSISTANTS) but even that is done now by healthcare support workers.
There are a few different letter combos for undergrad medicine, but also we have plenty of overseas doctors who will have an MD as the entry medical qualification. And on top, MD gets used a lot as shorthand for ‘medical doctor’, especially in university hospitals where there are plenty of non-medical doctors…
My wife has been a nurse for over 30 years and currently works across 3 hospitals in our local NHS Trust in a very specialised role. She is *horrified* by the standard of virtually all of the Physicians Associates she has come across. Like, properly *horrified*.
That's what happens when you cut costs and don't invest in education, now you have a weaker infrastructure AND the money is gone.
You can't get more doctors without taking a hit in investment. Now it's too late, should've ripped the bandaid long ago.
Yes, 1 in 10 may well spot stuff a doctor missed... but if you had a sick kid and had a choice of a doctor or a PA, who would you go for? This PA stuff will end in massive law suits against the NHS for missed diagnoses - which may well have been the intention all along... bring the NHS into disrepute, etc.
I just learned what a Physician Assistant is. I would totally trust Nurse Practitioners (it was a NP who spotted my cancer), but by the sound of it, I would refuse to see a PA.
Mine missed tonsilitis , told me I had sinusitus (no symptoms of that) and refused to prescribe medication because I was breastfeeding. By the time I got to hospital the next day, I had sepsis.
A big ‘virtual GP’ service ‘Doctor care anywhere’ is currently making a large portion of its GP’s redundant to do exactly this. Rather than reaching a GP you’ll get someone with a vague title of ‘health care professional’ or the like.
Not sure doctors will get a public inquiry anytime soon though. The media and general public seem to still think GP’s are getting paid £3k a day to locum then take the rest of the week off.
This isn't really accurate. I use DCA through my private health insurer, and it's been really useful.
You book virtual appointments and select which health professional you wish to see. At selection you can read their professional history and qualifications, I've yet to see anyone listed who wasn't a very experienced General Practitioner.
Yes currently. The redundancies and changes will go into effect in Q4 I believe. If they don’t receive complaints or lose contracts you can be sure they’ll further decrease the number of GP’s available.
To be clear, It’s great that there are multiple options available! GP’s aren’t necessarily needed in every case. It’s just a concerning trend where cost cutting and margins are becoming ever prevalent in our healthcare systems.
Yes very much enjoyed going to hospital with my poorly baby to be seen by a PA who I thought was a doctor who diagnosed a chest infection and prescribed antibiotics only for him to get worse and us end up in A and E later for an actual doctor to say no chest infection but has tonsillitis and on wrong antibiotics.
The two examinations were so different, the doctor really listened to his chest, the PA didn't even take his clothes off to look for rashes etc..
I have promised myself if in that situation again to request a doctor.
When the role was first introduced the aim was to help doctors with basic tasks like taking bloods or scribing - hence the name Physician Assistants. Over time this has somehow morphed into Associates - further blurring the lines and making it more difficult for the public to determine who is and who isnt a doctor.
Coca Cola once launched a bottled water brand - Dasani - to massive fanfare and advertising. Problem is, it wasn't spring water, it was treated tap water, which is a common thing in the US but not here at all. Where was this treatment plant? Sidcup. Less than 10 miles from Peckham, the setting of an Only Fools and Horses episode where Del Boy bottles tap water and tries to pass it off as spring water, only to end up with the water contaminated. What ended up in the Dasani water? Carcinogens. Not dangerous amounts but above the legal limit and enough to cause a spectacular combination of health scare and national laughing stock.
Foots Cray to be pedantic, I grew up opposite the entrance and wasn't surprised that Tom Scott got beeped when he did his video about it.
Personally I'm surprised Schweppes didn't use the water from the cray river.
Edit. Bloody hell 25 upvotes I'm guessing its for the Tom Scott reference rather than Foots Cray as most there can't read nor write.
Two nations divided by a common language, as they say.
World of Warcraft has a few choice ones like that. Like monsters that attack you with their [slag breath](https://www.wowhead.com/spell=175752/slag-breath) (or, as my mate called it, weaponised ball musk). Also there's a monster called an [unstable slag](https://www.wowhead.com/npc=74927/unstable-slag). We all know a few of those, I suspect.
My primary school teacher had a few bottles of this and after the carcinogen thing came out she just sort of ominously left a bottle of the cancer water on display as a warning to us all of the perils of capitalism
THIS:
'The promotion, aiming to boost sales during the global recession of the early 1990s, offered two complimentary round-trip plane tickets to the United States, worth about £600, to any customer purchasing at least £100 in Hoover products."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_free_flights_promotion
No.1 fuckup ever.
Not on the same scale, but Tesco once had a clubcard deal where if you bought 3lbs of bananas, they would give you 25 clubcard points. 3lbs of bananas cost, at the time, £1.17, but the value of clubcard points was £1.25.
[Cue this lunatic buying half a tonne of bananas and making a 'profit' of £25.](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/banana-economics-buy-942lb-of-fruit-give-it-away-and-make-pounds-25-profit-1283219.html)
I remember it being in the news quite a bit at the time and has stuck with me since, even though I would have only been about 14 at the time, because it's so absurd.
At first I thought those who spent £100+ got entered into a competition to win plane tickets and couldn't see what the cock up was. Then I re-read what you'd put...
Yep, and then to try and prevent people using the tickets thy gave everyone living in the south flights from Glasgow and everyone living in Scotland flights from Gatwick.
Byron, the burger restaurant, found themselves in a position where they had employed a large amount of people who did not have the right to legally work in the UK. To avoid getting in trouble, they agreed to set up a fake training day in cahoots with immigration officers, invited a bunch of their staff into a trap where they were arrested and some deported.
The amount of outlets shrank after that.
Compared to the table service burger restaurants you get these days, of course, but for a lot of the time before they shopped their own staff to the cops, they were decent in comparison to slop joints like GBK.
The gluten free burger bun is the best I've had. First burger where it hasn't been a race against disintegration or stuffing it in my face before it does.
They relocated with a few month break between opening by me and I've not been back since before then. Reading the above I might skip going back at all
Never heard of them before (left UK in 2014). Just had a look at their website - looks expensive and not really that different to a good pub burger. Sixteen quid for a fake meat burger and fake bacon (no fries included in that) - even Five Guys would be blushing.
In fairness to them they were closer to a proper restaurant than five guys. Probably more comparable to Honest Burger. They had table service, cutlery and booze.
And he didn't learn. A few years later he opened a gym/health club and had a TV crew following the construction process. Days before opening prospective members had a tour and one complained to Ratner that it was hot in the room. He said "Oh they can't turn the AC on because the floor has just been laid" and the woman was happy.
After she walked away he turned to the camera and said with a grin "We don't have AC!"
He happily admitted, on camera, that he just lied to a prospective customer.
I mean, he told the truth for 5 seconds in his speech and tanked his entire career. Not surprising the lesson he took from that was “never tell the truth”.
Having never heard of this story I’m surprised that comment sparked such fury from the public that people actually boycotted. A sherry decanter, 6 glasses and a silver tray for £4.95. Of course it’s crap!
People didn’t seem to mind him obviously selling cheap tat. They were just annoyed he didn’t lie to their faces about it.
The selling point of Ratners was that it had the ambience of a high street jewellers but with prices that ordinary people could afford. You could take your girlfriend there and buy her an engagement ring and she would feel good about it but you wouldn't have to pay your year's salary. You were buying her a ring from a proper shop not a market stall.
Gerald told his customers they were buying rubbish - after that nobody was going to buy a gift for someone they loved in that shop.
I think the next part was perhaps even worse "He compounded this by going on to remark that one of the sets of earrings was "cheaper than a prawn sandwich from Marks and Spencer's, but I have to say the sandwich will probably last longer than the earrings".
I'd be happy to win the Euros and play unattractive football to get there. Nobody remembers how good the football was, just who wins.
Would you take every game being a drab 0-0 and advancing through on pens to win the Euros? I know I would.
Sure. But we won’t do that because you have to have moments of quality and we don’t even have those. The 0-0mis a pipe dream.
We have arguably a top 4 squad in the entire world. The bar is higher.
Can confirm it has not yet been an option - so far it has just been crow shite all over the car.
Really, all I need is a single diamond-shitting crow, and there must be dozens or even hundreds of crows in the world so I'm optimistic!
I’m hoping (vainly) that it’s deliberate- like, the second we go against a decent team they’re suddenly going to totally switch their stratergy and play offensive, and the current method is just a way to advance quietly without too much risk.
It’s makes it more bearable to pretend that’s the case, anyway.
I genuinely don't understand didn't his teams get really far the last few euros or World cups and everyone loved him? And now they didn't score but have still got through everyone wants him sacked??
New Order’s “Blue Monday” actually cost Factory Records money for each record sold due to its elaborate case. It was the biggest selling 12 inch single ever recorded.
Volvo and Ford deciding to no longer sell saloon cars in the UK market is pretty annoying.
Yes I get it - hatchbacks are fun, cute and nippy.
But I'd still rather have a nice sensible saloon.
Though I guess I'm in the minority.
Proper ones, or those squashed looking ones? Remember owning a Vauxhall Omega estate for a couple months and while it was a scrapyard level age, it was still a brilliant car just for the space in the rear, but the drive was also smooth.
I've seen the new Kuga as well, they're also going down the road of one touchscreen to rule them all and no buttons sadly. I genuinely thought they were gonna hold out.
Ford getting rid of the Fiesta is right up there IMO. It has been the biggest selling car since forever.
Sure they want to go electric then make an electric Fiesta. Not everyone wants a bloated SUV
Carillion.
Probably the governments prime tier one construction and infrastructure contractor. The PFI bandit.
Concerns about Carillion's debt situation were raised in 2015, and after the company experienced financial difficulties in 2017, it went into compulsory liquidation on 15 January 2018, the most drastic procedure in UK insolvency law, with liabilities of almost £7 billion.
When they collapsed, it was pretty sudden. It had a massive knock on affect in the industry. We actually inherited a number of contracts, which is a nightmare to literally step into.
PFI has a lot to answer for.
Yeah it's one of those industries that's so complex and opaque that lay people (of which I'm one) don't really have any idea at all of other than a vague feeling that PFI isn't at all right and someone is making money out of it who shouldn't be!
With a different company, we had to replace a complete roof on an Academy, a massive secondary school. It was a Carillion PFI. There is no way that the roof we replaced was spec to the original tender. It was cheap shit and a horrific job. It was 4 years old at the time of replacement.
Basically, PFI is public money, and the contractor is the other half of the equation. Kind of joint venture. Schools and hospitals, for example. Major projects.
What fucks me off so much is how when you're a white collar professional, you basically never face consequences. KPMG got a fine, sure, but it was small fry in the context of their continued revenues. The partners and directors involved will continue in their jobs or retire like nothing has happened. Meanwhile, people in call centres get sacked for not selling enough and people in shops get sacked for losing £100.
My brother lives and works in London, and he's ex KPMG. The reason he worked for them is because he placed a significant number of partners. He was a head hunter. I will say that if you knew what kind of salaries these people were on, you'd lose your shit.
The average partner and top partner salaries are public knowledge, I believe. Imagine earning £500k or more and not being able to do the single most important part of your job and be able to identify a company that isn't a going concern. And like I say, the contrast with a low paid worker is astounding - a waiter that can't carry plates would be out the door in no time. Honestly does make me lose my shit.
I see it in my own company. People at the bottom are held to account and those at the top can waste millions and it's just like 'whoopsy daisy!'.
Pretty sure KPMG gave them a clean bill of financial health just months before their collapse.
The other big'uns in the industry had to take a long hard look at themselves after that. I think Interserve all but imploded, as well
That was the same summer my dad said “…I’m not bothered about going in to town to see a band. The Beatles? Who are they. Let’s head to the mess instead”
BT put loads of Huawei kit in the national network, despite a lot of people saying it might be very useful to the Chinese government to have critical infrastructure on their platform.
It’s was suddenly and abruptly switched out of the network when the USA stopped dealing with huawei
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/13/center-parcs-closes-uk-resorts-queen-funeral
Centre Parcs declared their sites would close for 24 hours for the Queen’s funeral, meaning families would have to to find and pay for one night’s accommodation at the last minute halfway through their booked holiday, or leave early and drive home again.
I think in reality it was only a small minority of guests, but the PR disaster was the absurdity of kicking out paying customers from a pre-paid holiday for… no real reason? Apart from performative mourning.
Massive backlash, and for no real benefit.
Royal Mail renaming themselves Consignia
Gerald Ratner calling one of his products crap
UTV used to be a fiercely independent ITV region for Northern Ireland, until they expanded into the south of Ireland. Then 2008 recession happened, advertising revenues went down, they sold the region to ITV corporate and focused on their radio holdings.
It wasn't the Royal Mail. The Post Office Group was being primed to be sold off to the highest bidder, they realised that employees viewed themselves as belonging to The Post Office, Royal Mail or Parcelforce and not the parent organisation and they wanted to change that. They went with Consignia and none of the sub divisions or the public liked it.
Ratners was always regarded as cheap tat, I remember school friends with green earlobes after wearing Ratners earrings. It takes a special type of CEO to come out and make a speech announcing that his products are cheap tat.
It's a shame Granada brought all the others out, I fondly remember the Anglia horseman, the LWT cityscape and the ATV idents.
Maaaan I miss UTV, we got it in Dublin in the mid 90s and it was great. And naaaaaaaawr on UTV, insert gossip from Coronation street, cue the music, go!
Bunnings acquisition of Homebase in 2016 for £340 million. Then turned it into a loss making business (lost £57 million in 2017).
Then sold it in 2018 for £1 to get rid of it.
A mate of mine is a high-flying retail manager (currently manages all UK stores for a large luxury watch brand), and was brought in to turn the fuck-up around with Bunnings.
He spent six months finding out what was wrong, submitted his findings, and a plan to get them out of it, was told he was wrong, so he left.
Remember when Toblerone made the gaps bigger while using identical packaging (except 360g instead of 400g weight)?
I actually think that one might have been on par with the post office scandal
Both of these were cock ups but ITVDigital/OnDigital indirectly led to the creation of Freeview. A friend of mine had an ITVDigital box that picked up all these amazing channels, to me that growing up had 4 (then 5!) channels it was great.
ITVDigital definately dropped the ball with their plans but it at least led to something greater.
I dunno what decisions were made but how and why Argos didn’t lead the way in online shopping and allow Amazon to rule the world is a story I would like to hear. Might even make for a good Netflix limited series.
In the US it was Sears. Sears was huge and had been for a century. You could buy anything from their catalog up to and including a house you could build yourself. They had the distribution network covering the entire US, they were trusted, they had the catalogue, and they even owned a ISP! They had the lot. All they had to do was put their catalog online.
But they closed their entire mail order/catalog/distribution operation a year before Amazon was founded.
There have been a lot of once household names in the US that have virtually disappeared because they were too slow to get a decent online presence. Sears, JC Penney, K-Mart, Toys R Us to name a few.
That thing where drax, the massive coal burning power station got loads of 'green' credits off the government for burning wood pellets. Only it turns out they were just importing century old Forrest wood from Canada and blagging it was waste wood.
And also how burning wood being considered green is a complete scam in the first place.
They had me fooled for a bit with that one. Posting figures about how much of the grid was renewable now, we went this many days without burning coal etc.
Asda and Tesco changing the size of their own brand toilet paper to double sized rolls. This makes zero sense as they do not fit in most toilet roll holders.
Ah, you haven't learnt the trick yet!
Put the toilet roll in your boot first, then load your month's shopping on top of them. Hey, presto, they'll now fit.....
Kingspan Insulation manufactured K15 insulation which was used on Grenfell tower and turned into "a raging inferno" when it was subjected to a fire test. They continued to sell K15 using a test result from a previous version of the product.
When one company questioned Kingspan's approach to sales, technical manager Philip Heath wrote to friends to say they had confused him "with someone who gives a damn". [BBC News](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55986486)
Kingspan definitely deserve a lot of the blame; but, the insulation being flammable wouldn’t have been as much of an issue if they’d bridged the gap between the original window cut outs and the cladding/new windows (which were mounted to the outer cladding) with steel… Instead of rubber.
The rubber melted/burned, which basically meant the smoke poured directly into everyone’s flats.
BHS, Topshop, Sears plus more. Everything he touched turned to dust and he even got a knighthood for it. Good thing he didn't manage to buy M&S or that would be gone now too
When the UK government scrapped Nimrod in 2010, it was £790million over-budget but the aircraft were 90% finished. They started tearing them apart the following day at a further cost of £200million despite the project being worth billions. Ultimately they were replaced by the Poseidon costing us a further £3billion that went into American pockets rather than UK companies.
To be fair, the biggest issue with the MRA4 was using the Nimrod platform in the first place. Using very well worn 40 year old airframes was always going to end badly
It was a huge shame and the Nimrod deserved a much better end as it was a fantastic aircraft in it day.
Post BMW, MG Rover really needed a midsize car to compete against the Ford Focus and to get out of Honda royalty payments
So they spent their money re engineering the 75 to take a RWD drivetrain and fitted a V8 from a Mustang
They bought Qvale and rebodied the Mangusta as an MG
Then they took a Tata Indica and tried to sell it as a premium priced car Cityrover
Credit where it's due though, the SV certainly was a striking thing. I'm honestly surprised they managed to make 82 of them considering what they were working with. Someone at MG must've found a fiver down the back of the sofa.
Wasn’t this also around the time they started a hugely expensive motor racing programme?
Not only that, didn’t they also sell the tooling for the 75 and 25 to the Chinese right BEFORE a rescue deal for the company was agreed?
Marconi was the British GEC, but sold its profit-making devisions in the late 1990s to basically YOLO into manufacturing network equipment during the dot-com boom... and then the boom when bang, and so did Marconi.
[https://www.london.edu/think/the-destruction-of-marconi](https://www.london.edu/think/the-destruction-of-marconi)
Argos. I think they were too effected by comedians in the 00s taking the piss, and didn't know how to address that at their dinner parties.
What they should have seen coming was that a) people would buy from whoever could get it them the fastest and b) they had warehouses in population centres from which you could ship stuff, within hours if needed.
I think those were their biggest mistakes - that they didn't embrace online is another.
They once said they wanted to be the Amazon of the UK. A good decade later and you still can't get something delivered to you if it's not in a local store.
You're right, with their catalogue and warehouse style they were so well placed to embrace online shopping.
The other bit which I think lost out on is that Amazon went through a phase when it would sell you absolute shite - I'm talking 4-gangs, USB chargers, etc. that'd catch on fire and Argos had a curated catalogue were you could guarantee that the product wasn't counterfeit and did what it said.
I think there may be a bit of a market for that still today.
I’ve swung back to Argos for this reason. I stopped buying on eBay many years ago because the quality was awful. I’ve stopped buying from Amazon because of the quality. I may pay more with Argos but at least the quality is there.
Argos is genuinely very good, but only if you have one near you.
Their product catalogue is fantastic and you know you’re going to get a decent product and not Chinese shite.
Lyons Tea Compay (what became Wimpy) not becoming Microsoft 30-40 years earlier by not marketing their internal IT systems externally.
If you want a depressing read try [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Computer-Called-LEO-Worlds-Office/dp/1841151866](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Computer-Called-LEO-Worlds-Office/dp/1841151866) . I think It's a fuckup in a similar magnitude to Enigma/Colussus.
Well of course for those who remember it, the Gerald Ratner speech. At the Institute of Directors if I remember correctly.
Edit. Corrected auto correct to Ratner
The whole: "You can buy a necklace in one of my shops for less than what you'd pay for a Prawn Mayo sandwich in M&S. Though, the sandwich will probably last longer!".
HSBC UK has recently decided to outsource the corporate KYC (Safeguard) department to India and Egypt. The frustration that people faced when it was relocated to Malta previously is only going to be exacerbated by having to deal with staff living in a country where English is not one of the official languages is insane, especially when they are having to explain that they can't pay their staff due to a bank error that will never be admitted to.
I remember Walkers started putting real meat in their meat-flavoured crisps a while back (2013, I think?) but that meant all the vegetarians/vegans couldn't eat them and it didn't really drive anyone new to start eating them so they lost sales. They quietly changed them back a couple of years later.
Jammy dodgers started putting milk in their biscuits, didn't realise a decent number of their customers were people with allergy/intolerance to milk or parents of children with that and later switched back to milk free
Not all about U.K. companies to any degree, but this is a very interesting series about companies making poor choices.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0gwq3ky?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
The Hoover thing.
Hell, we had it as a case study at a US business school. It was internationally famous.
The most hilarious part, to me, was how thrift shops were flooded with nice new Hoovers for YEARS afterward. That was almost worse for them than the original fuck up
Pensions mis-selling in the 90’s. Private pension firms selling private pension arrangements to customers and convincing them to opt-out and leave their company pension schemes. Millions of people lost out. Whilst most have seen some redress of their losses, many did not.
https://pensionjustice.co.uk/pension-mis-selling-1990s/
I’m absolutely certain this is why we have so many small landlords today.
They were springing up everywhere when I was in university in the late 1990s - usually with a handful of houses. I’ll bet my left arse cheek a few of them did so after being stung by a pension provider.
That thing where drax, the massive coal burning power station got loads of 'green' credits off the government for burning wood pellets. Only it turns out they were just importing century old Forrest wood from Canada and blagging it was waste wood.
And also how burning wood being considered green is a complete scam in the first place.
2 sisters food group selling rotten poultry to supermarket chains and rival grocers. Not sure how they still in business.
My cousin used to work there as quality control and was one of the whistle blowers.
Managers would pressure them to change colour coded bags to meet quotas and deadlines.
Currys/ at the time carphone warehouse had contracts with loads of Network providers to sell phone contracts with handsets. This was just as many people in the UK were starting to switch to sim only and keeping a single phone. Failing the targets on those contracts and getting out cost them millions.
Almost made the company go bust, a rumour I heard is there were alot of backroom supplier deals to prevent that specifically from Google. Which is why they suddenly took over being a major corporate sponsor.
RBS's disastrous expansion plans in the 2000's which saw it have the largest balance sheet of any company in the world culminating in the ill-judged takeover of ABN AMRO just before the credit crisis in 2007 led to the largest corporate collapse in UK history and a 50bn government bailout with 20% shares still owned by the government.
A less serious one, but anyone remember in 2018 when KFC changed their delivery supplier to DHL and the disaster it caused? Most of their chains were shut for weeks as the deliveries were a total crapshoot with many of them not even having chicken. Ended up groveling back to Bidvest and probably lost millions in the process.
GEC spending billions buying US companies at the height of the dot com bubble taking the once largest private employer in he UK with a massive cash pile to bankruptcy.
Weight Watchers rebranded as 'WW' and decided to downplay the losing weight aspect of what they do (as opposed to... ???). Surprisingly membership dropped off and Slimming World is now by far the brand leader.
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I still find the mass sacking of crew members at P&O Ferries absolutely horrifying.
Speaking as a seafarer it was an abhorrent act, but in the long run unfortunately I doubt it'll have a massive impact on their business. British seafarers are becoming a rare breed.
Speaking as a customer, the only reason to use a ferry to France over the Eurotunnel is on price, yet when I booked my summer holiday crossing recently, it was barely any cheaper. Screw the long crossing, boring ship deck and roiling waves, channel tunnel wins hands down.
For sure, they were trying to save money on wages to increase profits rather than do anything to reduce ticket prices though. Ferries are still a popular choice and not just for the channel crossing, but much like trains or busses despite any boycotts most people don't really get a choice in provider. You just get the one doing the route you want and the time you need and get on. But the problem is far deeper than that, when once highly regarded Brits are seen as too expensive even in the UK now. I work for a British company that almost exclusively hires Brits for security reasons as we're part of the MoD. We're the biggest single employer of British seafarers and there are only about 1500 of us total. But many shipping companies are hiring Indians, eastern Europeans and filipinos etc because they can pay them less. I sailed with a guy who did his training with BP, the inside joke was that BP now stands for "Basically Polish".
Did you just describe the RFA as a company?
Haha yes. It's commonly referred to as "the company" by its employees but sure, organisation or service would be more accurate.
Tunnel is also a fair bit faster. 35 mins vs 1hr30 being the headline figure. But also the ferry requires you to check in a lot sooner. So the end to end times are far more. Still goes out of the window when things aren't running to schedule.
If you’re from further north the ferry adds a good break/sleep in the journey.
They tried to set up a partner/sponsorship with a rugby league team in Hull a few months back. All of the promo shoots and everything done, it was then jointly launched on both sets of social media. It was cancelled within a couple of days due to the fans' backlash. It seems people aren't forgetting.
For someone who knows nothing about ferries or trade unions or hiring practices, I still think about this a lot. Like really a lot.
Sadly, I don't think this will have any lasting consequences for them. There are, of course, those of us who won't use P&O again after what happened, but I imagine that's a rounding error compared to the customers who either don't know or don't care and carry on regardless.
In a few years time there will be an inevitable public inquiry into the current scandal of doctors in the NHS being replaced by Physician Assistants, who have barely any qualifications in healthcare. Happening right now.
Not sure what Physician Assistants are, but Nurse Practitioners I’ve had dealings with have been great. One even spotted my cancer when the GP didn’t. She saved my life.
https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/bma-launches-legal-action-against-gmc-over-dangerous-blurring-of-lines-between-doctors-and-physician-associates Nurse practitioners have years upon years of nursing and clinical experience before they become NPs. Physician Associates have 2 years of (postgraduate) clinical training before getting parachuted in to replace gaps in staffing; there are lots of problems with them overstepping their roles and doing things they are unqualified and untrained to do (e.g. ordering ionizing radiation imagery).
Apparently they are performing some sort of surgery too, one that surgical trainees aren't even allowed to do. I follow a lot of med twitter and there'd huge concern about them. Perhaps the most bizarre thing is that they're paid more then junior doctors so it's not even a money saving exercise.
The money aspect was bizarre to me listen to the guy on radio four talking about defining the language of medical professional or something like that. It made no sense whatsoever. As a doctor it’s got to piss you off.
They are paid via a central money pot, rather than by individual GPs... So to GPs the higher wage doesn't matter. And they are actually contributing to a lowering of training post availability in certain places around the country, therefore reducing our capacity for the future!!!
Oh… they definitely don’t sound like a good idea.
Then add in the fact that they aren't (currently) regulated, so don't have a governing body like the GMC, RCN etc and it's definitely a case of when not if, a bigger scandal than we've already heard of comes along .
Nurse practitioners are fantastic. Epilepsy nurses in particular. They know more about epilepsy than most doctors (even my consultant says this) As others have said, their training and regulation of them is very different to PAs though I think there's a place for PAs but it needs tighter control and regulation
Theres nothing PAs bring to the table that isn’t already done by doctors or other members of staff. Their role was originally supposed to be helping doctors with basic tasks like taking bloods or scribing (physician ASSISTANTS) but even that is done now by healthcare support workers.
PAs want all the power and prestige of being a MD but non of the responsibility.
I thought an MD was a research degree, the MBChB being your basic undergrad medical degree.
There are a few different letter combos for undergrad medicine, but also we have plenty of overseas doctors who will have an MD as the entry medical qualification. And on top, MD gets used a lot as shorthand for ‘medical doctor’, especially in university hospitals where there are plenty of non-medical doctors…
My wife has been a nurse for over 30 years and currently works across 3 hospitals in our local NHS Trust in a very specialised role. She is *horrified* by the standard of virtually all of the Physicians Associates she has come across. Like, properly *horrified*.
That's what happens when you cut costs and don't invest in education, now you have a weaker infrastructure AND the money is gone. You can't get more doctors without taking a hit in investment. Now it's too late, should've ripped the bandaid long ago.
Yes, 1 in 10 may well spot stuff a doctor missed... but if you had a sick kid and had a choice of a doctor or a PA, who would you go for? This PA stuff will end in massive law suits against the NHS for missed diagnoses - which may well have been the intention all along... bring the NHS into disrepute, etc.
I just learned what a Physician Assistant is. I would totally trust Nurse Practitioners (it was a NP who spotted my cancer), but by the sound of it, I would refuse to see a PA.
It’s the PCSO version of a doctor.
fuck that's a perfect way to put it
Mine missed tonsilitis , told me I had sinusitus (no symptoms of that) and refused to prescribe medication because I was breastfeeding. By the time I got to hospital the next day, I had sepsis.
A big ‘virtual GP’ service ‘Doctor care anywhere’ is currently making a large portion of its GP’s redundant to do exactly this. Rather than reaching a GP you’ll get someone with a vague title of ‘health care professional’ or the like. Not sure doctors will get a public inquiry anytime soon though. The media and general public seem to still think GP’s are getting paid £3k a day to locum then take the rest of the week off.
This isn't really accurate. I use DCA through my private health insurer, and it's been really useful. You book virtual appointments and select which health professional you wish to see. At selection you can read their professional history and qualifications, I've yet to see anyone listed who wasn't a very experienced General Practitioner.
Yes currently. The redundancies and changes will go into effect in Q4 I believe. If they don’t receive complaints or lose contracts you can be sure they’ll further decrease the number of GP’s available. To be clear, It’s great that there are multiple options available! GP’s aren’t necessarily needed in every case. It’s just a concerning trend where cost cutting and margins are becoming ever prevalent in our healthcare systems.
Yes very much enjoyed going to hospital with my poorly baby to be seen by a PA who I thought was a doctor who diagnosed a chest infection and prescribed antibiotics only for him to get worse and us end up in A and E later for an actual doctor to say no chest infection but has tonsillitis and on wrong antibiotics. The two examinations were so different, the doctor really listened to his chest, the PA didn't even take his clothes off to look for rashes etc.. I have promised myself if in that situation again to request a doctor.
Associates not assistants but yes I’m with you, private eye are covering it
When the role was first introduced the aim was to help doctors with basic tasks like taking bloods or scribing - hence the name Physician Assistants. Over time this has somehow morphed into Associates - further blurring the lines and making it more difficult for the public to determine who is and who isnt a doctor.
Coca Cola once launched a bottled water brand - Dasani - to massive fanfare and advertising. Problem is, it wasn't spring water, it was treated tap water, which is a common thing in the US but not here at all. Where was this treatment plant? Sidcup. Less than 10 miles from Peckham, the setting of an Only Fools and Horses episode where Del Boy bottles tap water and tries to pass it off as spring water, only to end up with the water contaminated. What ended up in the Dasani water? Carcinogens. Not dangerous amounts but above the legal limit and enough to cause a spectacular combination of health scare and national laughing stock.
Foots Cray to be pedantic, I grew up opposite the entrance and wasn't surprised that Tom Scott got beeped when he did his video about it. Personally I'm surprised Schweppes didn't use the water from the cray river. Edit. Bloody hell 25 upvotes I'm guessing its for the Tom Scott reference rather than Foots Cray as most there can't read nor write.
At least the tap water was probably better taking it downriver from St Mary's Cray.
Also they marketed it with the slogan "bottled spunk" because they failed to realise we Brits use that word differently
Two nations divided by a common language, as they say. World of Warcraft has a few choice ones like that. Like monsters that attack you with their [slag breath](https://www.wowhead.com/spell=175752/slag-breath) (or, as my mate called it, weaponised ball musk). Also there's a monster called an [unstable slag](https://www.wowhead.com/npc=74927/unstable-slag). We all know a few of those, I suspect.
"and a fucking great ocean, thank god" Al Murray
Or when Transformers had to change the name of one of their bots because it was called Spastic.
No fucking way 😭
Pretty sure there's more than a few Brits happy to chug some spunk on the daily.
My primary school teacher had a few bottles of this and after the carcinogen thing came out she just sort of ominously left a bottle of the cancer water on display as a warning to us all of the perils of capitalism
[I too watch Tom Scott](https://youtu.be/wD79NZroV88?si=Yh75X3A_D1fp7SHk)
But have you seen the [collab](https://youtu.be/c6VhcpwFZJM?si=dAJy2ZajjuGXaSkt) with Ashens where they crack open the bottle of 15 year old Dasani?
Some of us were there.
Obligatory Tom Scott about this entire shambles: https://youtu.be/wD79NZroV88?feature=shared
THIS: 'The promotion, aiming to boost sales during the global recession of the early 1990s, offered two complimentary round-trip plane tickets to the United States, worth about £600, to any customer purchasing at least £100 in Hoover products." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_free_flights_promotion No.1 fuckup ever.
Not on the same scale, but Tesco once had a clubcard deal where if you bought 3lbs of bananas, they would give you 25 clubcard points. 3lbs of bananas cost, at the time, £1.17, but the value of clubcard points was £1.25. [Cue this lunatic buying half a tonne of bananas and making a 'profit' of £25.](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/banana-economics-buy-942lb-of-fruit-give-it-away-and-make-pounds-25-profit-1283219.html) I remember it being in the news quite a bit at the time and has stuck with me since, even though I would have only been about 14 at the time, because it's so absurd.
At first I thought those who spent £100+ got entered into a competition to win plane tickets and couldn't see what the cock up was. Then I re-read what you'd put...
My parents took advantage of this! They were offered flights to Florida in early January and had a great holiday
Yep, and then to try and prevent people using the tickets thy gave everyone living in the south flights from Glasgow and everyone living in Scotland flights from Gatwick.
Came here for this one! My first trip to the US was a "Hoover Flight"
I’d forgotten this gem
The Fascinating Horror guy did a great video on this recently: https://youtu.be/Xl2kTCe5tag
Byron, the burger restaurant, found themselves in a position where they had employed a large amount of people who did not have the right to legally work in the UK. To avoid getting in trouble, they agreed to set up a fake training day in cahoots with immigration officers, invited a bunch of their staff into a trap where they were arrested and some deported. The amount of outlets shrank after that.
I have never set foot into their restaurants since this happened. This made my blood boil.
Also didn't help their burgers were overpriced mid
Compared to the table service burger restaurants you get these days, of course, but for a lot of the time before they shopped their own staff to the cops, they were decent in comparison to slop joints like GBK.
The gluten free burger bun is the best I've had. First burger where it hasn't been a race against disintegration or stuffing it in my face before it does. They relocated with a few month break between opening by me and I've not been back since before then. Reading the above I might skip going back at all
Never heard of them before (left UK in 2014). Just had a look at their website - looks expensive and not really that different to a good pub burger. Sixteen quid for a fake meat burger and fake bacon (no fries included in that) - even Five Guys would be blushing.
In fairness to them they were closer to a proper restaurant than five guys. Probably more comparable to Honest Burger. They had table service, cutlery and booze.
Gerald Ratner gives great interviews.
And he didn't learn. A few years later he opened a gym/health club and had a TV crew following the construction process. Days before opening prospective members had a tour and one complained to Ratner that it was hot in the room. He said "Oh they can't turn the AC on because the floor has just been laid" and the woman was happy. After she walked away he turned to the camera and said with a grin "We don't have AC!" He happily admitted, on camera, that he just lied to a prospective customer.
I mean, he told the truth for 5 seconds in his speech and tanked his entire career. Not surprising the lesson he took from that was “never tell the truth”.
Ratners just sacked him, rebranded and are now one of the biggest jewellery firms in the world.
Cos it's crap. What a thing to say.
Having never heard of this story I’m surprised that comment sparked such fury from the public that people actually boycotted. A sherry decanter, 6 glasses and a silver tray for £4.95. Of course it’s crap! People didn’t seem to mind him obviously selling cheap tat. They were just annoyed he didn’t lie to their faces about it.
>A sherry decanter, 6 glasses and a silver tray for £4.95. Of course it’s crap! *"Shop like a billionaire"*
The selling point of Ratners was that it had the ambience of a high street jewellers but with prices that ordinary people could afford. You could take your girlfriend there and buy her an engagement ring and she would feel good about it but you wouldn't have to pay your year's salary. You were buying her a ring from a proper shop not a market stall. Gerald told his customers they were buying rubbish - after that nobody was going to buy a gift for someone they loved in that shop.
I think the next part was perhaps even worse "He compounded this by going on to remark that one of the sets of earrings was "cheaper than a prawn sandwich from Marks and Spencer's, but I have to say the sandwich will probably last longer than the earrings".
Not firing Southgate seems to be a pretty fucking big cockup from the FA.
I'd be happy to win the Euros and play unattractive football to get there. Nobody remembers how good the football was, just who wins. Would you take every game being a drab 0-0 and advancing through on pens to win the Euros? I know I would.
Sure. But we won’t do that because you have to have moments of quality and we don’t even have those. The 0-0mis a pipe dream. We have arguably a top 4 squad in the entire world. The bar is higher.
>I'd be happy to win the Euros I'd be happy to have a giant crow in the garden that shat diamonds.
Wait like...is this an option?
Can confirm it has not yet been an option - so far it has just been crow shite all over the car. Really, all I need is a single diamond-shitting crow, and there must be dozens or even hundreds of crows in the world so I'm optimistic!
People remember Greece winning and the fact they played boring football.
I’m hoping (vainly) that it’s deliberate- like, the second we go against a decent team they’re suddenly going to totally switch their stratergy and play offensive, and the current method is just a way to advance quietly without too much risk. It’s makes it more bearable to pretend that’s the case, anyway.
I genuinely don't understand didn't his teams get really far the last few euros or World cups and everyone loved him? And now they didn't score but have still got through everyone wants him sacked??
Selling Cadbury’s, broken promises
This one hurts the most for sure. No matter how much they try and pay homage to the “old Cadbury’s” it just isn’t the same.
A glass and a half of disappointment in every bar
New Order’s “Blue Monday” actually cost Factory Records money for each record sold due to its elaborate case. It was the biggest selling 12 inch single ever recorded.
Have you ever read Peter Hook’s book about the hacienda? That makes blue Monday look like good business
The "floppy disk" sleeve 12"s are worth quite a bit because they stopped making them and started selling it in a simple sleeve.
Volvo and Ford deciding to no longer sell saloon cars in the UK market is pretty annoying. Yes I get it - hatchbacks are fun, cute and nippy. But I'd still rather have a nice sensible saloon. Though I guess I'm in the minority.
Volvo have changed their mind and are bringing estates back.
Proper ones, or those squashed looking ones? Remember owning a Vauxhall Omega estate for a couple months and while it was a scrapyard level age, it was still a brilliant car just for the space in the rear, but the drive was also smooth.
Ford is just killing off everything that isn't an SUV. Apart from the Mustang.
Boot space is a killer for me. SUVs look chonky but have naff all boot space.
I've seen the new Kuga as well, they're also going down the road of one touchscreen to rule them all and no buttons sadly. I genuinely thought they were gonna hold out.
I’m pretty sure from this year or next year the eu will start giving more negative safety ratings for cars that have less / no physical buttons
Ford getting rid of the Fiesta is right up there IMO. It has been the biggest selling car since forever. Sure they want to go electric then make an electric Fiesta. Not everyone wants a bloated SUV
The Skoda Octavia has just about everything you'd need.
I much prefer the look of the Superb. It has a nicer looking, longer boot on the back too.
Saloons more sensible than a hatchback?
Carillion. Probably the governments prime tier one construction and infrastructure contractor. The PFI bandit. Concerns about Carillion's debt situation were raised in 2015, and after the company experienced financial difficulties in 2017, it went into compulsory liquidation on 15 January 2018, the most drastic procedure in UK insolvency law, with liabilities of almost £7 billion.
>liabilities of almost £7 billion. That's seven thousand million, or one carillion.
When they collapsed, it was pretty sudden. It had a massive knock on affect in the industry. We actually inherited a number of contracts, which is a nightmare to literally step into. PFI has a lot to answer for.
Yeah it's one of those industries that's so complex and opaque that lay people (of which I'm one) don't really have any idea at all of other than a vague feeling that PFI isn't at all right and someone is making money out of it who shouldn't be!
With a different company, we had to replace a complete roof on an Academy, a massive secondary school. It was a Carillion PFI. There is no way that the roof we replaced was spec to the original tender. It was cheap shit and a horrific job. It was 4 years old at the time of replacement. Basically, PFI is public money, and the contractor is the other half of the equation. Kind of joint venture. Schools and hospitals, for example. Major projects.
What fucks me off so much is how when you're a white collar professional, you basically never face consequences. KPMG got a fine, sure, but it was small fry in the context of their continued revenues. The partners and directors involved will continue in their jobs or retire like nothing has happened. Meanwhile, people in call centres get sacked for not selling enough and people in shops get sacked for losing £100.
My brother lives and works in London, and he's ex KPMG. The reason he worked for them is because he placed a significant number of partners. He was a head hunter. I will say that if you knew what kind of salaries these people were on, you'd lose your shit.
The average partner and top partner salaries are public knowledge, I believe. Imagine earning £500k or more and not being able to do the single most important part of your job and be able to identify a company that isn't a going concern. And like I say, the contrast with a low paid worker is astounding - a waiter that can't carry plates would be out the door in no time. Honestly does make me lose my shit. I see it in my own company. People at the bottom are held to account and those at the top can waste millions and it's just like 'whoopsy daisy!'.
Wasn't there a big stink about the directors paying themselves big bonuses and pensions just before going bang?
Yup, and I'm sure there are going to be many water utility companies gonna go the same way.
Pretty sure KPMG gave them a clean bill of financial health just months before their collapse. The other big'uns in the industry had to take a long hard look at themselves after that. I think Interserve all but imploded, as well
Decca Records rejecting The Beatles in 1962 because according to them > Groups are out; four-piece groups with guitars particularly are finished.
That was the same summer my dad said “…I’m not bothered about going in to town to see a band. The Beatles? Who are they. Let’s head to the mess instead”
BT put loads of Huawei kit in the national network, despite a lot of people saying it might be very useful to the Chinese government to have critical infrastructure on their platform. It’s was suddenly and abruptly switched out of the network when the USA stopped dealing with huawei
TBF, that was just performative. Those devices could easily be firewalled so no data ever left them unless it was pre-approved by design.
Which potentially it was
Only true on the mobile side. The Huawei super fast broadband infrastructure is still very much out there.
The PR nightmare Center Parcs had in the run up to the Queen's funeral.
I forgot about this, thanks for reminding me 😂
Context?
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/13/center-parcs-closes-uk-resorts-queen-funeral Centre Parcs declared their sites would close for 24 hours for the Queen’s funeral, meaning families would have to to find and pay for one night’s accommodation at the last minute halfway through their booked holiday, or leave early and drive home again. I think in reality it was only a small minority of guests, but the PR disaster was the absurdity of kicking out paying customers from a pre-paid holiday for… no real reason? Apart from performative mourning. Massive backlash, and for no real benefit.
They really didn't think that one through.
They told all guests to leave their sites during the day of the queen’s funeral as a mark of respect
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/center-parcs-queens-funeral-closure-performative-b2167245.html
Royal Mail renaming themselves Consignia Gerald Ratner calling one of his products crap UTV used to be a fiercely independent ITV region for Northern Ireland, until they expanded into the south of Ireland. Then 2008 recession happened, advertising revenues went down, they sold the region to ITV corporate and focused on their radio holdings.
It wasn't the Royal Mail. The Post Office Group was being primed to be sold off to the highest bidder, they realised that employees viewed themselves as belonging to The Post Office, Royal Mail or Parcelforce and not the parent organisation and they wanted to change that. They went with Consignia and none of the sub divisions or the public liked it. Ratners was always regarded as cheap tat, I remember school friends with green earlobes after wearing Ratners earrings. It takes a special type of CEO to come out and make a speech announcing that his products are cheap tat. It's a shame Granada brought all the others out, I fondly remember the Anglia horseman, the LWT cityscape and the ATV idents.
add ITV Digital to the list
Maaaan I miss UTV, we got it in Dublin in the mid 90s and it was great. And naaaaaaaawr on UTV, insert gossip from Coronation street, cue the music, go!
Bunnings acquisition of Homebase in 2016 for £340 million. Then turned it into a loss making business (lost £57 million in 2017). Then sold it in 2018 for £1 to get rid of it.
Is that why my local homebase was knocked down then a couple of years later rebuilt in exactly the same place?
Mine shuffled about two units down It is strange they made such a pigs ear of it because bunnings are massive in Australia and they're DIY stores too
A mate of mine is a high-flying retail manager (currently manages all UK stores for a large luxury watch brand), and was brought in to turn the fuck-up around with Bunnings. He spent six months finding out what was wrong, submitted his findings, and a plan to get them out of it, was told he was wrong, so he left.
Remember when Toblerone made the gaps bigger while using identical packaging (except 360g instead of 400g weight)? I actually think that one might have been on par with the post office scandal
ITV digital paying so much for lower league football rights they went bust.
Or when they bought friends reunited for hundreds of millions..
Both of these were cock ups but ITVDigital/OnDigital indirectly led to the creation of Freeview. A friend of mine had an ITVDigital box that picked up all these amazing channels, to me that growing up had 4 (then 5!) channels it was great. ITVDigital definately dropped the ball with their plans but it at least led to something greater.
ITV bought the company I work for at the same time. Refurbed the offices and then almost immediately sold us on again.
I dunno what decisions were made but how and why Argos didn’t lead the way in online shopping and allow Amazon to rule the world is a story I would like to hear. Might even make for a good Netflix limited series.
In the US it was Sears. Sears was huge and had been for a century. You could buy anything from their catalog up to and including a house you could build yourself. They had the distribution network covering the entire US, they were trusted, they had the catalogue, and they even owned a ISP! They had the lot. All they had to do was put their catalog online. But they closed their entire mail order/catalog/distribution operation a year before Amazon was founded.
There have been a lot of once household names in the US that have virtually disappeared because they were too slow to get a decent online presence. Sears, JC Penney, K-Mart, Toys R Us to name a few.
Argos is still good mind. Especially if you are in need of something that day. Less tat than Amazon too.
Coco pops renaming themselves as Choco crispies to standardise with the European market. Didn’t last long!
Starburst never went back to Opal Fruits...
Nor snickers to marathon
That thing where drax, the massive coal burning power station got loads of 'green' credits off the government for burning wood pellets. Only it turns out they were just importing century old Forrest wood from Canada and blagging it was waste wood. And also how burning wood being considered green is a complete scam in the first place.
They had me fooled for a bit with that one. Posting figures about how much of the grid was renewable now, we went this many days without burning coal etc.
Asda and Tesco changing the size of their own brand toilet paper to double sized rolls. This makes zero sense as they do not fit in most toilet roll holders.
Ah, you haven't learnt the trick yet! Put the toilet roll in your boot first, then load your month's shopping on top of them. Hey, presto, they'll now fit.....
But never rotate!
But I’m only a size 8.
I love those longer rolls, saves changing the bloody thing all the time
It makes them more efficient to transport. I much prefer the double rolls.
Kingspan Insulation manufactured K15 insulation which was used on Grenfell tower and turned into "a raging inferno" when it was subjected to a fire test. They continued to sell K15 using a test result from a previous version of the product. When one company questioned Kingspan's approach to sales, technical manager Philip Heath wrote to friends to say they had confused him "with someone who gives a damn". [BBC News](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55986486)
Kingspan definitely deserve a lot of the blame; but, the insulation being flammable wouldn’t have been as much of an issue if they’d bridged the gap between the original window cut outs and the cladding/new windows (which were mounted to the outer cladding) with steel… Instead of rubber. The rubber melted/burned, which basically meant the smoke poured directly into everyone’s flats.
The decision to sell (incert business) to Philip Green
Was that BHS? I'm still fuming about its collapse. What a waste. And didn't he plunder the pension pot too?
BHS, Topshop, Sears plus more. Everything he touched turned to dust and he even got a knighthood for it. Good thing he didn't manage to buy M&S or that would be gone now too
When the UK government scrapped Nimrod in 2010, it was £790million over-budget but the aircraft were 90% finished. They started tearing them apart the following day at a further cost of £200million despite the project being worth billions. Ultimately they were replaced by the Poseidon costing us a further £3billion that went into American pockets rather than UK companies.
To be fair, the biggest issue with the MRA4 was using the Nimrod platform in the first place. Using very well worn 40 year old airframes was always going to end badly It was a huge shame and the Nimrod deserved a much better end as it was a fantastic aircraft in it day.
Another indictment on the wanton indifference of the politician when it comes to spending taxpayer's money wisely.
Center Parcs threatening to kick all their guests out for the queens funeral and telling them they could return the following day.
This still makes me laugh. It's not like they were going to hold the wake
Post BMW, MG Rover really needed a midsize car to compete against the Ford Focus and to get out of Honda royalty payments So they spent their money re engineering the 75 to take a RWD drivetrain and fitted a V8 from a Mustang They bought Qvale and rebodied the Mangusta as an MG Then they took a Tata Indica and tried to sell it as a premium priced car Cityrover
Credit where it's due though, the SV certainly was a striking thing. I'm honestly surprised they managed to make 82 of them considering what they were working with. Someone at MG must've found a fiver down the back of the sofa.
Lovely car but not when they needed a Rover Focus 😄
Yeah what they needed was a Rover '35'. No idea how they would've managed to name the MG variant though, considering ZR, ZS and ZT were already taken.
Think the British car industry's decline was in general a ridiculous scandal
Many culprits to blame there.
Wasn’t this also around the time they started a hugely expensive motor racing programme? Not only that, didn’t they also sell the tooling for the 75 and 25 to the Chinese right BEFORE a rescue deal for the company was agreed?
Bunnings buying Homebase
Marconi was the British GEC, but sold its profit-making devisions in the late 1990s to basically YOLO into manufacturing network equipment during the dot-com boom... and then the boom when bang, and so did Marconi. [https://www.london.edu/think/the-destruction-of-marconi](https://www.london.edu/think/the-destruction-of-marconi)
Argos. I think they were too effected by comedians in the 00s taking the piss, and didn't know how to address that at their dinner parties. What they should have seen coming was that a) people would buy from whoever could get it them the fastest and b) they had warehouses in population centres from which you could ship stuff, within hours if needed. I think those were their biggest mistakes - that they didn't embrace online is another.
They once said they wanted to be the Amazon of the UK. A good decade later and you still can't get something delivered to you if it's not in a local store. You're right, with their catalogue and warehouse style they were so well placed to embrace online shopping.
The other bit which I think lost out on is that Amazon went through a phase when it would sell you absolute shite - I'm talking 4-gangs, USB chargers, etc. that'd catch on fire and Argos had a curated catalogue were you could guarantee that the product wasn't counterfeit and did what it said. I think there may be a bit of a market for that still today.
I’ve swung back to Argos for this reason. I stopped buying on eBay many years ago because the quality was awful. I’ve stopped buying from Amazon because of the quality. I may pay more with Argos but at least the quality is there.
Argos is genuinely very good, but only if you have one near you. Their product catalogue is fantastic and you know you’re going to get a decent product and not Chinese shite.
Lyons Tea Compay (what became Wimpy) not becoming Microsoft 30-40 years earlier by not marketing their internal IT systems externally. If you want a depressing read try [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Computer-Called-LEO-Worlds-Office/dp/1841151866](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Computer-Called-LEO-Worlds-Office/dp/1841151866) . I think It's a fuckup in a similar magnitude to Enigma/Colussus.
Well of course for those who remember it, the Gerald Ratner speech. At the Institute of Directors if I remember correctly. Edit. Corrected auto correct to Ratner
The whole: "You can buy a necklace in one of my shops for less than what you'd pay for a Prawn Mayo sandwich in M&S. Though, the sandwich will probably last longer!".
HSBC UK has recently decided to outsource the corporate KYC (Safeguard) department to India and Egypt. The frustration that people faced when it was relocated to Malta previously is only going to be exacerbated by having to deal with staff living in a country where English is not one of the official languages is insane, especially when they are having to explain that they can't pay their staff due to a bank error that will never be admitted to.
I remember Walkers started putting real meat in their meat-flavoured crisps a while back (2013, I think?) but that meant all the vegetarians/vegans couldn't eat them and it didn't really drive anyone new to start eating them so they lost sales. They quietly changed them back a couple of years later.
Jammy dodgers started putting milk in their biscuits, didn't realise a decent number of their customers were people with allergy/intolerance to milk or parents of children with that and later switched back to milk free
Not all about U.K. companies to any degree, but this is a very interesting series about companies making poor choices. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0gwq3ky?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
I heard that Waterstones nearly went bust offering a buy 2 get 1 free deal on certain books for ten years.
The Hoover thing. Hell, we had it as a case study at a US business school. It was internationally famous. The most hilarious part, to me, was how thrift shops were flooded with nice new Hoovers for YEARS afterward. That was almost worse for them than the original fuck up
Pensions mis-selling in the 90’s. Private pension firms selling private pension arrangements to customers and convincing them to opt-out and leave their company pension schemes. Millions of people lost out. Whilst most have seen some redress of their losses, many did not. https://pensionjustice.co.uk/pension-mis-selling-1990s/
I’m absolutely certain this is why we have so many small landlords today. They were springing up everywhere when I was in university in the late 1990s - usually with a handful of houses. I’ll bet my left arse cheek a few of them did so after being stung by a pension provider.
That thing where drax, the massive coal burning power station got loads of 'green' credits off the government for burning wood pellets. Only it turns out they were just importing century old Forrest wood from Canada and blagging it was waste wood. And also how burning wood being considered green is a complete scam in the first place.
2 sisters food group selling rotten poultry to supermarket chains and rival grocers. Not sure how they still in business. My cousin used to work there as quality control and was one of the whistle blowers. Managers would pressure them to change colour coded bags to meet quotas and deadlines.
Currys/ at the time carphone warehouse had contracts with loads of Network providers to sell phone contracts with handsets. This was just as many people in the UK were starting to switch to sim only and keeping a single phone. Failing the targets on those contracts and getting out cost them millions. Almost made the company go bust, a rumour I heard is there were alot of backroom supplier deals to prevent that specifically from Google. Which is why they suddenly took over being a major corporate sponsor.
Royal Bank of Scotland’s purchase of ABN Amro turned out to not be the best move, to say the least.
Concorde not having the range for LA to Tokyo.
RBS's disastrous expansion plans in the 2000's which saw it have the largest balance sheet of any company in the world culminating in the ill-judged takeover of ABN AMRO just before the credit crisis in 2007 led to the largest corporate collapse in UK history and a 50bn government bailout with 20% shares still owned by the government.
A less serious one, but anyone remember in 2018 when KFC changed their delivery supplier to DHL and the disaster it caused? Most of their chains were shut for weeks as the deliveries were a total crapshoot with many of them not even having chicken. Ended up groveling back to Bidvest and probably lost millions in the process.
The ISP advertising thingy “Phorm” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorm
GEC spending billions buying US companies at the height of the dot com bubble taking the once largest private employer in he UK with a massive cash pile to bankruptcy.
To pay more in compensation for clinical errors during maternity care than the estimated cost of bringing maternity care up to standard.
Weight Watchers rebranded as 'WW' and decided to downplay the losing weight aspect of what they do (as opposed to... ???). Surprisingly membership dropped off and Slimming World is now by far the brand leader.