Cobblers Awards

‘Cobblers’ is a word in the UK which came to mean ‘Nonsense’: it’s usually used when someone comes out with a lie or excuse, that is such a load of utter twaddle it would send a lie detector into overdrive. The environmental debate is full of this sort of thing, so much so that there should be a “cobblers award” for the transparently awful nonsense thrown about.

A prime example was thrown at me a while back at a church near here by a well educated, intelligent church member. He was telling me that this business about Fair-trade is wrong and we aren’t really helping anyone: In fact, we are making the problem worse. That’s right, life wasn’t all that bad down there until that Fair-trade business messed everything up royally for poor people.

Now sometimes I get the wrong end of the stick because I’m listening in my second language, so I double-checked, and the person speaking to me confirmed I was hearing correctly. A friend from a “Third-world” economy, who migrated to Germany (despite a wonderful lifestyle back home?) had told him that all these clothes for rich northerners was made by family businesses, with mum, dad, and any kids that could hold a needle, working in jolly communal endeavour, rather like a Hovis advert for jeans, and then some evil fair trade executive ruthlessly forced the children under 14 to go off and get educated, thus reducing the family income. He was absolutely serious about this.

Er… but the point of many fair trade organisations like Tearfund is to build cooperatives so that people can bargain a fair price, isn't it? Then they can provide for their family, generate wealth for the local economy, and educate their children to build a better future?

Nope... Apparently that’s “Not sustainable”: we can’t possibly afford to pay for poor children to get an education and keep our economy going. Prices would rise, and the cost of living in the West would skyrocket, the sun would be darkened, and the four horsemen of the apocalypse would come charging out, and the whole economic system would come crashing to the ground.

I may have imagined some of those consequences, but that was the general idea if what was described. The global poor recieve, on average, 5% of the western retail price of what they make, and it seems we can't possibly spare the other 95% if we are to maintain our lifestyles. Sorry, but there we go. Don’t start complaining or getting into cooperatives for better bargaining power, because we will be forced to stop buying, and we won't have any spare change or outdated computers to give you either.

However, don’t you worry: come the weekend we’ll be down to the high street to buy, buy, buy, and do every little bit we can, so you can get your 5%...


[Edit: I was told the first version of this was a bit obtuse, so here's a revised one. Apologies if it lands in your inbox a second time...]