Page 19WITH two-thirds of the
annual Court Circular
engagements complete, a
friendly rivalry develops
between Kate and
Meghan over who will make the most
appearances. Last year, Meghan was
triumphant with 96, while Kate (affected
by maternity leave) did 87. So far, Kate
has completed 38, compared with
Meghan, who has been on maternity
leave, on 22. With Charles and Anne
traditionally battling it out for top spot,
could it be a Cambridge-Sussex race to
avoid being bottom of the table?NO wonder Boris’s Biarritz paddle was
accompanied by legions of swimming
police. When Prussian chancellor Otto
von Bismarck took a dip there in 1862, he
was dragged ashore unconscious along
with his mistress, Princess Katherina
Orloff. At least Boris emerged safely – and
left his mistress at home.FLYING from Biarritz, Boris held court
with Westminster journos over a glass of
red wine. When then PM John Major
strolled to the back of the plane for a third
time, one hack grunted: ‘**** off prime
minister I’m doing my expenses.’ Step
forward Leftie scribe Alastair Campbell.AT least Prince Andrew’s Epstein rebuttal
was far more plausible than BBC comedy
show Little Britain’s fictitious Tory MP Sir
Norman Fry, who appeared at the gates of
his manor house with implausible excuses
for his conduct such as: ‘On entering the
room, my clothes accidentally fell off.’BORIS’S right-hand man Dominic
Cummings is flatteringly profiled by CNN,
with one anonymous friend concluding:
‘All of the charlatans and spivs are
courtiers to the people at the top of their
parties. They are all looking at Dom
because he is doing what they wanted to
do. The only problem is, they’re bull****.
Dom is the substance.’ Could Dom’s
unnamed buddy be himself?PEAKY Blinders star
Helen McCrory, pic-
tured with her hus-
band Damian Lewis, is
delighted the new
series of the Birming-
ham gang fest has
achieved more than
three million viewers.
But it wasn’t watched
by their 12-year-old
daughter and 11-year-old son. ‘I’m very
protective of my children, she says. ‘And
no, they don’t watch Peaky Blinders.’PIeRS Pottinger, mourning his former
business partner Tim Bell, recalls: ‘The
last thing I did for him about ten days
ago was to help him light his cigarette.
Now, like the magician he was, he has
disappeared in a puff of smoke.’THE BBC about-face over playing Michael
Jackson – Radio 2 featured him at the
weekend – undermines comedian Jack
Dee’s quip about The Goodies’ 1975
appearance on Top of the Pops, perform-
ing Funky Gibbon, introduced by Jimmy
Savile and squashed between Gary Glitter
and Jackson. ‘It can never be shown
again,’ jokes Dee. Who knows?Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 28, 2019To order a print of this Paul Thomas cartoon or one by Pugh, visit Mailpictures.newsprints.co.uk or call 020 7566 0360.Ephraim
Hardcastle
£1.49 the week before.
Another promotion saw Asda
claim a carton of Carte D’Or ice
cream ‘was £3.50, now £2’. In
fact, it was sold at £2 for more
weeks of the year than £3.50.
Similarly, Morrisons sold packs
of Cathedral City cheddar,
boasting ‘was £3.50, now £2’.Email: [email protected]must ensure the information
they present to consumers ‘is
fair and does not waste time or
cause annoyance, disappoint-
ment or regret’. Stores are also
banned from setting prices
which ‘cause a consumer to
overspend or buy a product
that is inappropriate for them’.
Responsibility for enforcing
these rules falls to councils’ trad-
ing standards departments – but
these have been ravaged by cuts,
and often do not have the
resources to bring legal action.
However, there is good evi-
dence to show that when coun-shoppers with deceptive deals
and spurious special offers. If
not, the CMA must intervene.’
Tom Ironside of the British
Retail Consortium, which rep-
resents supermarkets, said:
‘[These stores] seek to provide
the best value for consumers on
the hundreds of thousands of
product lines they sell.
‘This is often through promo-
tions and discounts, which can
change week to week, even on
the same product lines, as
retailers seek to cut the cost
for shoppers.’
[email protected]cils do take action, the courts
take the issue seriously.
Tesco was fined £300,000 in
2013 after it admitted selling
punnets of strawberries at a
‘half-price’ figure of £1.99, despite
having only sold them at £3.99
for just seven days. The ‘half-
price’ deal ran for 14 weeks.
Natalie Hitchins of Which?
said: ‘Four years on from our
super-complaint, many of the
big supermarkets are clearly still
in the wrong, with numerous
examples of dodgy discounts
and never-ending offers. These
retailers must stop trickingSuPeRMARKeTS are still
fooling shoppers with bogus
discounts years after being
ordered to stop, an investiga-
tion has found.
Consumer group Which? exam-
ined 450 products from major
supermarkets, and found ‘deals’
weren’t always what they seemed.
Some offers encouraged shoppers to
buy in bulk by giving the impression
this provided better value – even
though it was cheaper to buy prod-
ucts individually.
Other examples saw stores using
dubious benchmark prices to make
savings seem more generous. Some
‘special offer’ prices were simply what
was charged for most of the year.
In one case, Iceland sold packs of
Kellogg’s Crunch Nut at ‘two for £4’ –
but the cereal had been available forCarte D’Or
strawberry
ice cream CLAIM:‘Was £3.50 now £2’ REALITY:Product actually
sold at £2 for more weeks of
the year than the ‘original’
price of £3.50Cathedral
City
mature
cheddar CLAIM:‘Was £3.50 now £2’ REALITY:Same product
was available for £2 the
week before the offerKellogg’s
Crunchy Nut
corn flakes CLAIM:
‘2 for £4’ REALITY:Packs sold at
cheaper £1.49 each in the
Source: Which? week before the dealWELL AISLE BE: THE DODGY ‘DISCOUNTS’
Supermarkets
still tricking
shoppers with
bogus of fers
‘Bake on a low heat... and get out no later than October 31st’
The cheese had actually been
priced at £2 the week before.
The scandal shows no sign of
stopping, despite Which? mak-
ing a ‘super-complaint’ about the
practice four years ago. Lodged
by consumer groups such as
Which?, these require the Com-
petition and Markets Authority
to respond within 90 days.
The super-complaint in 2015
prompted official guidance
from the Chartered Trading
Standards Institute to ensure
supermarket prices complied
with consumer law.
However, Which? says its anal-
ysis – covering Asda, Iceland,
Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s,
Tesco and Waitrose – shows
stores are continuing to flout
the law. It has reported its latest
findings to the CMA, which it
hopes will take further action.
Current rules state that shops‘Clearly in
the wrong’By Sean Poulter
Consumer Affairs Editor