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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US universities witnessed a record number of censorship attempts in 2025, according to a new report.

Research from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) documented 273 attempts this year to silence “constitutionally protected” student speech, up from the previous record of 252 in 2020. The organisation also noted a surge in 2025 of government officials attempting to influence colleges’ response to free-speech incidents.

The FIRE report’s authors highlighted particularly egregious examples of campus censorship, including the arrest in March of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestine activist at Columbia University. Other notable cases include the suspension of two student magazines at the University of Alabama earlier this month for running counter to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s guidelines on diversity, equity and inclusion programmes, as well as Indiana University’s censorship of its campus newspaper in October over the publication’s news reporting.

2025 set a new record for censorship on US campuses

Attempts to investigate and punish students for protected expression by year, 2020-25

Citing “an uptick in attempts by the political right to silence speech in 2025”, the FIRE report highlighted an increased crackdown by government officials on colleges following the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. Indiana University student representative Henery Cash mocked the shooting by saying that “the world just got a little better today” and calling Kirk a “Demon” who had been sent “back to Hell”. In response, the state’s attorney general called for constituents to pressure the university into firing Cash from his campus job.

Meanwhile, US Rep. Derrick Van Orden announced his intention to introduce legislation which would strip Oberlin College of federal funding after one of its students said in a social media video that “we need to bring back political assassinations.” These incidents follow a wider trend in national life, where hundreds of Americans have reportedly lost their jobs or been investigated for posts criticising Kirk after his death.

The previous record for instances of campus censorship occurred against the backdrop of the 2020 Covid-19 lockdowns and widespread protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In September FIRE noted a record number of annual attempts to censor academics on US campuses, while last year the organisation found that 85% of colleges across the country impose “restrictive” speech codes on students.

Logan Dougherty, a Senior Researcher at FIRE, said that “these findings paint a campus culture in which student expression is increasingly policed and controversial ideas are not tolerated,” adding: “College is supposed to be a place where ideas are freely shared, not where students should be concerned about whether their comments will be subject to university scrutiny.”