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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War is brewing once again over the small matter of whether Britain is broken. Writing for the Times over the weekend, Kemi Badenoch declared that the county is not broken — it is, apparently, a place where “dreams come true”, and people are “alive to the possibilities of the future”. A land of bluebirds and rainbows, in other words.

That’s why the Tory leader proclaims herself “tired” of what she calls “this misery, the endless negativity, the doom and gloom”. But whose misery? Badenoch doesn’t actually say, so it’s worth looking in the direction of the opinion polls and the current level of support for Labour and the Conservatives. The two parties which have run this country for more than a hundred years can’t even manage 40% of the vote between them.

It’s an unprecedented situation, one that speaks to a profound unhappiness among the British people. Does Badenoch take their misery seriously? Currently, her message to voters sounds like “shut up and eat your upbeat clichés.”

In this respect, Reform UK — which does believe that Britain is broken — is more in tune with the national mood. And yet Nigel Farage and his party colleagues also have a problem, which is that for all the Tory-Reform differences in style, vibes and optimism, the parties’ policy platforms are now near-identical.

Both want to pull Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights, both want to slash welfare spending, both have blamed the second fossil fuel crisis in the last five years on Net Zero, and both have been left floundering by the Trump-induced breakdown in the Atlantic alliance. Reform did have a chance to chart a distinct course by ending the Triple Lock on the state pension — and even dropped a few hints that it might — but last week the party well and truly chickened out.

The underlying similarity between the two parties, reinforced by the defections of Robert Jenrick and Nadhim Zahawi, could prove crucial in the aftermath of the local elections in May. Reform looks set to make another leap forward, while the Conservatives suffer severe setbacks. But to put pressure on Badenoch, Farage needs a repeat of what happened after last year’s local elections: a sudden shift in support from the Conservatives to Reform in the national polls. If that doesn’t happen — and there are reasons to think it won’t, not least the lack of major policy differences — then Farage will need a new political strategy.

Of course, Badenoch will need a new political strategy, too. There’s no way she can carry on after a second round of catastrophic losses and pretend that the Conservative brand isn’t toxic. Though she’s gone a long way to improving her personal standing with the public, her party’s popularity lags far behind.

Fixing that would begin with a comprehensive reshuffle of the Shadow Cabinet. Her top team should look like the next Conservative government, not the last one. Even more importantly, she needs to admit that Britain is broken and that her predecessors played a significant part in breaking it. That, of course, would require a level of rhetorical depth that is entirely absent from the dross that she’s just contributed to the Times.

It would be easier for her not to take the risk, to ride out the pain of the local election results and rely on her proven strengths. But the only way she’ll get away with that is if Reform UK sticks to its rut in trying to take over the Tories, and the Labour ministers to theirs in keeping Keir Starmer. Essentially, she’d be betting her leadership on the continued complacency of her opponents.

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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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