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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Subway Takes, an online series in which celebrities sit on the New York Subway and offer their hottest “takes”, is an interesting cultural phenomenon. This is not because of the quality of the opinions expressed, but because it reveals how empty-headed famous people are — and, more than that, how much their takes, at a deep, logical level, contradict their progressive belief structure.

A good example of this can be found in the recent episode featuring the singer Jennifer Lopez. Speaking to host Kareem Rahma, J.Lo argues that you have to be born in New York to be a New Yorker. Though she might not realize it, this view evinces a tribalism that would impress the most ardent nationalist. Its logic is basically conservative and, applied at scale, is equivalent to nationalism. Fans, recognizing this, were not happy.

Lopez’s take, interestingly, bears rhetorical similarity to Spencer Pratt’s mayoral campaign in Los Angeles, which appeals to pride in being an Angelino and having a sense of duty to clean up one’s hometown. If one can “be” a New Yorker or an Angelino, if there exists an inherited culture and tradition, then there is something worth defending. It follows, therefore, that there must be rules and limits. In this political mode, true locals righteously reject the grad-school socialism of transplants.

Subway Takes appeals to urban progressives and wannabe media elites because it gives famous people — and up-and-coming famous people — a chance to show that they don’t entirely think in orthodoxies. It is not really designed to be a vehicle for public displays of deep thinking, but instead to show that celebs are people too — they have a (safe) edge.

The basic format involves getting a progressive celeb or micro-celeb to say they don’t like XYZ and that XYZ should stop or go away. The optics and the tone of the show — funny and optimistic — evoke Mamdani-era Leftism, but the underlying message has a hint of the dark and reactionary, speaking to a need for the social order that progressivism has otherwise disallowed. It introduces the idea of an us and a them, things which should be done and things which shouldn’t. By their very nature, these takes are rooted in basic instincts about the fabric of society.

Urban progressives do not really practice equal-opportunity tolerance and see no reason why certain groups of bad guys or outsiders should be excluded from the fruits of professional-managerial-class utopia. They are often willing to advocate for tribalism and exclusion — based on race, caste, geography, and class — as long as they feel they’re talking to a fellow progressive in service of larger progressive goals. Vox-pop interviews simply draw out this revealed preference.

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Matthew Gasda is a playwright, author, and columnist for UnHerd, based in New York City.

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