Holland & Barret & Lush

[abigailsnan]

I am shocked to read H&B is owned by Russians and the some Lush soaps are made in Russia will you boycott these stores ?

"My recollection is that the vast majority of people in Britain were opposed to it?"

Yes, but not enough to bring down the government, which would have been possible if people really wanted it.

"I remain unconvinced that boycotts of everything connected to Russia will achieve anything whatsoever. "

Fine, but that doesn't mean it's xenophobic or 'bordering on xenophobic' as you claimed in your post.

@Gwenhwyfar

"My recollection is that the vast majority of people in Britain were opposed to it?"

Yes, but not enough to bring down the government, which would have been possible if people really wanted it.

"I remain unconvinced that boycotts of everything connected to Russia will achieve anything whatsoever. "

Fine, but that doesn't mean it's xenophobic or 'bordering on xenophobic' as you claimed in your post.

Funnily enough, I do remember at the time (the next general election following the war) wondering why more people didn't vote either Liberal Democrat or Green Party at the time, as I did. They were the two parties with a clear anti-war policy. But, when I look back at it now, I think many people felt trapped, because of our crazy electoral system. If we had PR, I think more people would have. The Tory party voted for the war too, and probably many people felt that a Labour government, even a right wing, compromised one, was less bad than a Tory government. They were such similar parties at the time. So in marginal constituencies, people may have voted Labour as a way of keeping the Tory candidate out. Also, a fair number of Labour MPs did vote against the war, including Jeremy Corbyn, so some of their constituents may have felt happy keeping them there, which is probably fair enough. Labour's vote share did go down considerably that election anyway. But overthrowing a government in those circumstances, wouldn't have been easy...

I think you missed the part where it was stated that H and B is owned by Russian oligarchs sanctioned due to their close ties to and funding of Putin.

Actually, yes, mea culpa. I hold my hands up and admit I didn't take that part fully on board. Apologies to anyone I
falsely accused of xenophobia. Some of the posts on Mumsnet very definitely have been. So, I've become sensitive to it.
I've just looked into H&B, and apparently the oligarch guy has just been taken off the board. Not sure what that means in real terms. I need to look into it further.
Though as I so rarely shop there, and favour my local independent shop, it's not that relevant to me.
I still maintain that completely ethical shopping is an impossible task.
I'm still happy to shop in Lush, apart from the exorbitant price!

@BarrowInFurnessRailwayStation

I boycott them anyway. Lush stinks to high heaven and has pushy shop assistants and H&B flog overpriced crap.

They're both rubbish stores.

This. Both are appalling value so I don't use them anyway.

"Funnily enough, I do remember at the time (the next general election following the war) wondering why more people didn't vote either Liberal Democrat or Green Party at the time, as I did. They were the two parties with a clear anti-war policy. But, when I look back at it now, I think many people felt trapped, because of our crazy electoral system. If we had PR, I think more people would have. The Tory party voted for the war too, and probably many people felt that a Labour government, even a right wing, compromised one, was less bad than a Tory government. They were such similar parties at the time. So in marginal constituencies, people may have voted Labour as a way of keeping the Tory candidate out. Also, a fair number of Labour MPs did vote against the war, including Jeremy Corbyn, so
some of their constituents may have felt happy keeping them there, which is probably fair enough.
Labour's vote share did go down considerably that election anyway. But overthrowing a government in those circumstances, wouldn't have been easy..."

Yes, but overthrowing the government would have been possible if enough people wanted it. The fact is that the populace allowed it to happen. You can't say that they were totally innocent in the whole thing.

Lush didnt know what a woman was long before Kier Starmer

If you are boycotting any stores or other organisations because of their links to Russia (or any reason) do let them know, and the reason why.
I unsubscribed from the uniqlo mailing list earlier in the week (because they were vowing to keep russian stores open) and sent a longish email letting them know why.
The following day they announced they were closing stores in Russia after a rethink. Clearly not just my email, but presumably they had lots of others like it.
And I saw a nice jacket in their window this afternoon