San Francisco’s shoplifting epidemic is shocking to behold. But we shouldn’t imagine that the same couldn’t happen here. In fact, we’re well on our way. According to the British Retail Consortium, theft from stores across 10 UK cities is up by 26%. More, “incidents of violence and abuse against retail employees have almost doubled on pre-pandemic levels.”

On Tuesday, Asda Chairman Stuart Rose told LBC that “theft is a big issue. It has become decriminalised. It has become minimised. It’s actually just not seen as a crime anymore.”

In the absence of an adequate response from the authorities, retailers are beginning to take defensive measures. For instance, home furnishings company Dunelm is now locking up duvets and pillow cases in cabinets; Waitrose is offering free coffees to police officers to increase their visibility; and Tesco plans to equip staff with body cameras. 

The “progressive” response to this phenomenon isn’t quite as deranged as it is in in the US. Nevertheless, British liberals have responded as expected. A piece in the Observer is typical. You’ll never guess, but apparently it’s all the Tories’ fault: “Starving your population and then ‘cracking down’ on it for nicking baby formula or a can of soup can start to make a government look rather unreasonable.”

But as the writer ought to know, the issue here isn’t the desperate young mum hiding a few groceries in the pram. Nor is it the schoolboy pilfering the occasional bag of sweets. Rather, the real problem is blatant, organised and sometimes violent theft of higher value items. Criminals who never previously thought they could get away with it increasingly now do — thus presenting a material threat to retail as we know it. 

But instead of addressing the issue head-on, the writer blames the victim: “Once goods were kept behind counters, but since the birth of large supermarkets they have been laid out near the door, ready for the taking.” How terribly irresponsible of them! On the other hand, perhaps the open display of goods isn’t just a convenience for customers, but instead the hallmark of a high trust society. 

In fact, modern shops are a minor miracle of civilisation: public spaces, stacked high with products from all over the world, that passing strangers may freely inspect and handle, but which aren’t looted by anyone who feels like it.

Surely, that’s something worth defending. But if you’d prefer to abandon retailers to their fate, then don’t moan when they do what it takes to survive. Some will close, of course, and others will move their operations online. Those who stay open will guard themselves and their stock behind plexiglass and electronic tags. And then there’s the hi-tech solution: the fully automated and completely cashless store, in which customers have to be authenticated to even get in. 

Remember that retail facilities like this already exist. One day, when they become the norm, we’ll remember what shops used to be like. Then, we’ll ask why no one stood up for them.

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Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.

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When he entered office, Mayor Zohran Mamdani feigned shock upon discovering that, as had been widely reported since 2022, New York City’s finances are severely strained. Spending, boosted by billions in federal pandemic-related aid, has soared over the last 10 years, with the city budget ballooning far faster than the rate of inflation. That would be fine if revenue growth kept up with outgoing expenses, but it hasn’t: from 2021, spending grew at 6.8% annually against only 5.2% annual growth in tax revenue.

No wonder, then, that three credit agencies have shifted their outlook for New York City to negative, highlighting the dire state of the city’s finances. This means that New York is on the verge of a credit downgrade, which could lead to soaring borrowing costs.

While the strain on public finances is not Mamdani’s doing, his response has been conspicuously ineffective. In recent months, he has escalated his calls for higher taxes rather than setting out workable remedies. His stance appears driven less by problem-solving than by an ideological commitment to “taxing the rich”, which he invokes as an end in itself. The allocation of any new revenue is treated as a secondary concern; the priority is ensuring that the wealthy “pay their fair share”. On the campaign trail, he proposed a 2% levy on income above $1 million alongside a significant rise in corporate taxes, with the proceeds earmarked for free daycare, fare-free buses, and subsidized grocery stores. For someone who has based his platform on making the city more affordable, his policies risk plunging the city into financial ruin.

Problems with the New York pursestrings have been brewing for years, and start with the city’s approach to migration. Eric Adams earned the enmity of the Joe Biden White House when he announced in 2023 that a flood of tens of thousands of migrants would “destroy New York City”. This might have sounded alarmist, but New York has embraced a “right to shelter” policy that guarantees every person a bed for the night, including meals and towels. The cost of this program was already exorbitant, but the arrival of 110,000 migrants created a uniquely expensive situation. This was then exacerbated by the continual under-budgeting of migrant aid and general social service spending, which — predictably — caught up with the city.

None of this was new, despite Mamdani’s professed dismay. Yet he has seized on the city’s deteriorating finances to advance his own political agenda. An obvious alternative — barely acknowledged in his remarks — would be to rein in spending. But on the Left, even the language of “budgeting” tends to be conflated with austerity and swiftly dismissed. The result is a narrow policy frame in which the default options are higher taxes and a drawdown of the city’s emergency reserves.

Bond markets tend to react sharply to such signals. Higher income and corporate taxes can erode the tax base by pushing out top earners and mobile firms. Credit rating agencies, for their part, look for fiscal headroom — capacity within both spending and taxation — to absorb a downturn. Once a city approaches its effective tax ceiling, the risk of a fiscal death spiral comes into view.

Mamdani’s dilemma is that he arrived promising a sweeping expansion of public spending in the name of “affordability”. Yet New York already devotes vast sums to social services. On the city’s Left, there is a persistent assumption that its allure is so great the wealthy will remain regardless of the tax burden. The evidence points the other way: the state’s population is declining, and a number of billionaires and financial firms have already decamped. In trying to make the city more “affordable”, Mamdani may instead be steering it toward fiscal strain.

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Seth Barron’s new book Weaponized will be released in April.

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