Brace yourselves...
Guardian readers can be a bolshy lot, so it's a brave company that submits to their ethical blog Q&A. Howies dealt with it pretty gracefully when they were turned over, but you'd have thought it would have given Neal's Yard Remedies some idea of what they might be in for. Apparently not...
It's impossible to say at what point they decided this had all been a terrible idea - was it when a reader asked:
Do you see no problem with trying to be 'ethical' while at the same time selling snake oil for a living?
or perhaps:
I was wondering what your policy was on dealing with the situation of one of your stocked alternative medicines actually being proven to work. Would you discontinue it? After all, it wouldn't be alternative any more, just medicine.
or maybe:
I've been soaking a £20 note in a bathfull of water for the last few days, is it ok to pay for an order using my new homeopathic money? I now seem to have rather a lot of it.
We'll never know.
