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.

peterfranklin_

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Donald Trump keeps winning. $25 million from Meta. $10 million from X/Twitter. Now, $25 million from YouTube. 

In recent months, the President has been raking in big sums as his legal teams have gone after those who ejected him from their platforms in the wake of the January 6 riots. 

Victory tastes sweet. But what, exactly, has been won? The Trumpists would call it a triumph for free speech, a vindication after years of unfair treatment. But that’s not entirely the case. What it really reveals is the grinding machinery of corporate interests — tectonic plates of power colliding until a bolus of dollars is squeezed out. It sheds no light on the politics of yesterday, but lays bare everything about the politics of today.

Take the most recent settlement. In January 2021, Donald Trump received a “strike” on his YouTube account for violating the platform’s rules — the same sanction that can befall anyone who has clicked the “Accept Terms of Service” box. By 8 January, Meta and Twitter had already suspended his account, citing “public safety” concerns. For a few days, YouTube was left hanging loose, but by 13 January, it had decided to ban him too.

What was the exact nature of his YouTube infringement? We still don’t know. Nor do we know about what particular video the strike was against. The account was simply frozen out, and not resumed. 

Trump’s lawyers focused most of their argument on the fact that he was more than an ordinary user: that social media was a kind of “public square”, in which a prominent political actor had a special right to speak. They hinted that these companies were operating in lock-step, and that by collectively closing themselves off to him, they were indulging in “political discrimination”. 

It’s an interesting argument, but political discrimination is not a concept generally recognised by US courts. And, had it come down to it, it is unlikely Trump’s team would have prevailed anyway. So why did they settle? Because the world seemed fixed, and Trump seemed doomed. They assumed he was a spent political force. 

His return to office flipped their calculations: suddenly Big Tech firms feared their internal communications could be subpoenaed. Unflattering messages about the former president could easily have made front-page news, with all the predictable fallout. At best, the companies might have hoped for a carefully managed PR response; at worst, they risked a sustained conservative boycott that would have hit their bottom line hard. 

Big Tech, of course, has sharp survival instincts. It stays close to the powers that be. Just as Zuckerberg grew his hair, donned a medallion, and chatted with Rogan about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the platforms themselves cultivate legislative agendas they hope to see realised. Looking back from today, 2021 feels like another country. The mood has shifted so completely that revisiting the tone of those days now invites a certain cultural cringe under the new regime.

In effect, the tech firms are making burnt offerings to their new gods: $25 million here, $10 million there. Kiss the ring and go. After all, Trump, much like them, is a figure who only swims forward. Having sealed that loyalty, he too will move on. 

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Gavin Haynes is a journalist and former editor-at-large at Vice.

@gavhaynes

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