Conservatives to stop 'militant leftwing' councils boycotting products | Society | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015 ... g-products

I think the average product boycott is pathetic for many reasons, but for the Tories to pretend that it's hurting the average taxpayer over here or that it's ok so long as it's on a national level... I mean Saudi Arabia springs to mind. Libya. China. The councils might be petty, but at least they're calling a spade a spade and not just licking arse for money. Osborne's back must be killing him at this point.

It strikes me this is going to be pretty much impossible to prove unless the councils come out and state publicly they haven't contracted/bought 'thing X' because of it's country of origin.

And also I thought the conservatives were all about not dictating centrally what everyone has to do. if a labour government did this they'd be screaming about 'socialism'.

the Govt. have stated that local boycotting of 'certain' products is prohibited
then why is 'this' Govt. boycotting and prohibiting trade with Russia ? ...

Because this government's motto is very much 'do as I say, not as I do'.

Because one is official government policy and the other has no official standing...

Council policy has exactly the same official standing as a central government policy. Which is to say, pretty much none. The only thing that matters is 'is it the law or not'. 'Government policy' in actual legal terms has no meaning at all. It's just the statement of intent from some minister or other. If you actually want to enforce the policy you make it a law, otherwise people are free to ignore it.

Not abiding by the policy of whoever you work for would most likely be a disciplinary matter but even then it wouldn't usually constitute something you could be sacked for unless there was a history of repeated breaches or it was somehow spectacularly damaging to your employer.

Jon

Pretty much. "Official" as in the government cabinet said this is what we want to do, unofficial as in not said by a member of the cabinet. The former is "this is the image we want to project to the world," and the other is "this is what we think is right." The problem is, the the government is the bigger bully in the playground.