My friend Charles Medawar, who has died suddenly aged 82, campaigned on consumer safety and corporate accountability. He started his career in the 1960s working with Michael Young at the Consumers’ Association, where his research included the first testing of tar and nicotine in cigarettes (not that it stopped him from smoking at the time). After he became unhappy with the unquestioning promotion of consumerism and consumption, he went to the US, where he spent a formative time working with the activist Ralph Nader.
Back in the UK, having secured financial backing from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Charles set up Social Audit and the charity Public Interest Research Centre in 1972. Their groundbreaking work on transparency and corporate social responsibility was decades ahead of its time and went on to spawn the campaigns that secured the UK’s freedom of information and whistleblowing laws.
