Word of Mouth: Tesco Is No Champion of The Poor

Tesco's no champion for the poor: Reuters

10th June 2010, Observer Food Monthly

Forget the eulogies to Sir Terry Leahy. The legacy of Leahyism has been damage to our towns, countryside and environment, and the promotion of a much poorer diet that we’ll all pay for

Sir Terry Leahy is retiring as head of Tesco after 14 years, “to spend more time with his private investments”, according to yesterday’s Guardian. He got the sort of press that’ll make a nice decorative feature in his downstairs loo. He is one of the “10 people who have most helped the poor in recent decades,” said the Tory blogger Tim Montgomerie in a Times piece, straplined ‘champion of the poor’. “Every little he did helped us,” said The Sun. “The outstanding businessman of the decade,” said the Mail.

Do these people get out at all? They could visit one of the towns in Britain, such as Inverness, where three in every £4 is spent in a Tesco store; take a walk down the high streets reduced to a pathetic straggle of charity shops and tanning parlours. Then Leahy’s fans might begin to see why another part of the population – among them farmers, small business people and independent shop owners – don’t think Sir Terry helped at all.