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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Germany’s failure to win a seat on the 15-member United Nations Security Council for the first time since 1987 has been described as a “bitter defeat” by Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul. The loss is being interpreted as an indictment of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Janus-faced approach to foreign policy and transatlantic relations. More significant, though, is Berlin’s defeat by two European peers with priorities outside traditional Western power structures, and alliances in the Global South that make them better attuned to a shifting international power balance.

Austria and Portugal beat Germany at a canter in the secret ballot to scoop up the two non-permanent Security Council seats for Western Europe. Having rather snootily warned against “smaller” nations taking both spots, Wadephul portrayed Germany’s loss as resulting from its principled stand in support of Ukraine and, more significantly, Israel. “The fact that Germany must always assume a special responsibility for Israel in the Middle East conflict may have cost votes,” he admitted.

Commentators are eager to draw this same connection in order to portray a growing global consensus against Israel, with one declaring that the loss “has everything to do with Germany’s support for Israel’s genocide”. Yet, damaging though it may have been, support for Israel is unlikely to be the key reason for Germany’s defeat; after all, neighboring Austria takes a similarly resolute stance.

Success for Austria and Portugal may instead indicate deeper global dissatisfaction with traditional Western power structures. Austria’s constitutional neutrality and lack of NATO membership contrasts sharply with Germany’s wish to emerge as the European leader of a rejuvenated alliance. An Austrian diplomat summed up the distinction: “As a small country that is non-aligned and militarily neutral, we can play a special role, because it’s not about the rights of the political heavyweights, but the balance of rights among all states.”

Portugal’s emphasis on collaboration with the Lusophone states of South America and Africa, meanwhile, provides it with a unique viewpoint on the rise of the Global South and the nations which may well become the powerbrokers of the new order. Merz is forlornly attempting to knit together a frayed Western-led rules-based order, grounded in the increasingly dubious power and influence of NATO, that much of the world sees as already dead. Austria and Portugal are smaller, but better attuned to the dynamics of a changing global picture.

In this context, it doesn’t help that Germany appeared to take winning its seat on the Security Council for granted, making a remarkably slow start to campaigning compared with its rivals. Berlin has also slashed its foreign aid budget, further alienating potential supporters in developing nations.

All this feeds into the credibility gap perceived in Merz’s vision of German leadership in international affairs. In turn, the waning status of the transatlantic alliance and traditional Western power centers is driving the evolution of the UN itself, into a talking shop with little real influence on an international arena where states increasingly assert their interests through unilateral action.

Donald Trump complained in his address to the General Assembly last year that “all [the UN] seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up.” When the US President openly questions the UN’s purpose, it’s clear that the organisation’s old function, and the international order it helped maintain, are losing relevance. German bitterness over the loss of a seat on the Security Council may, in itself, be the clearest indication of all that Berlin is dreaming of an old world order that no longer exists.