A cheap but not cheerful Primark moment

Last night BBC's Panorama showed children making clothes for Primark, reminding us that those prices are too good to be true - Indian children being even more cost-effective than their beloved "economies of scale" - and also of the power of investigative journalism.

A Primark spokesman said: "Primark is an ethical organisation and takes its responsibilities seriously. It's an absolute outrage for anyone to suggest otherwise", while leaving it to Panorama to actually find out whether its suppliers were using child labour or not. The children were paid 60p "on a good day", which even considering the 11-year-old's lack of qualifications seems a touch of wage restraint too far.

Personally, I have always loathed Primark. The whole "buy it on Friday, wear it on Saturday and chuck it on Monday" school of dressing seems trashy, and those silly prices were always suspicious. The Hammersmith branch, with its collapsing piles of "directional" tops, illustrates fashion's ugliest face: the flogging of the disposable to the gullible. My friends who have bought children's clothes there will now pause; who wants to dress their offspring in clothes that might have been made by someone their own child's age?

The responsibility of checking out suppliers is firmly that of the company, which claims to have a "strict Supplier Code of Conduct" and is a member of the Ethical Trading Initiative. There's no doubt the company has tried its best with damage limitation, if nothing else. Primark says it has sacked three suppliers.

The problem is that until something like this programme turns up, it's not in Primark's commercial interests to discover the sordid truth about its supply chain, particularly as it makes such a point about not advertising so it can't even trade on its ethical laurels, as M&S can. So Primark's ethical investigations are effectively subcontracted to the media, as ethics were at City Hall under the last Mayor, and as they have been at Westminster. These people cross their fingers and hope no one will look too closely; then comes the dark day when a dogged reporter shows up.

This is a reminder that when it comes to business or politics, the media serve the function of pulling up the carpet and peering beneath when nobody else wants to look. But a company that outsources its conscience should be punished by the shopper.

Catherine Ostler is editor of ES Magazine.