I spend a lot of time in my local Waitrose because I find it relaxing, even if I don’t buy much.
It’s a kind of temple of gentle British capitalism – that innocuous, eccentric mix of relatively high-quality foods whose chemicals and packaging are kept in check by myriad regulations, while the prices, though high, seem insignificant compared to Whole Foods or similar upscale American chains.
I love browsing the latest luxury convenience products. Did I know I wanted a new crab and scallop mix in a big ready-to-eat bowl, a watercress-infused tzatziki, a big bee-themed jar? No: but now that I know it exists, it turns out I might want it after all!
“What will they come up with next?” I often murmur to myself as I happily stroll between the pomegranate syrups and rose harissa pastes.
But the charm of this store seems more and more to belong to an era when Brits did not have to do their shopping under the watchful eyes of omnipresent cameras and security guards.
A time when we didn’t expect gangsters to regularly invade stores and steal the most expensive things they could get their hands on, like liquor and wine. A time when the common decency that governs most daily life seemed to be so rarely disturbed that most customers went years without noticing any violations.
In other words, an era that now appears to be long gone. Last week, Lucy Brown, director of central operations and security at the John Lewis Partnership, said bluntly that the rise in shoplifting was not, as soft-hearted types claim, to do with the cost of living. “I don’t see that,” she said. “I describe it as pure greed, not need.”
“There are a lot of people who shoplift as many hours a week as I work, which is quite a lot. That’s basically their job.”
There are organized gangs… They empty the shelves… They do this to resell the goods.” Other thieves do this to finance their various addictions.
Brown’s blunt assessment is unusual. Pointing to the obvious moral decay of society and the rise of bad actors, rather than blaming a harsh and cruel welfare system, evil Tories in Westminster or inequality, is deeply unpopular. This is not surprising; attributing moral agency and responsibility for people’s actions goes against the basic wokerati worldview. But “greed, not need” seems to me to be exactly the right line.
More than once I have been to Waitrose, engrossed in the latest tin of mixed nuts, and heard a huge scuffle, the shouting of security guards and alarm systems.
Employees in the liquor section (next to the nut aisle) tell me that today’s gangs don’t even pretend to need basic necessities. They strut straight to the most expensive liquor, take it, and run off in coordinated raids. They show no fear, no shame, no interest in the consequences (and are convinced there won’t be any).
The staff are not trained in combat or self-defense and therefore do not feel compelled to intervene too strongly, which is understandable. It is not safe for them to do so.
It is astonishing that working as a sales assistant in a Waitrose branch has now apparently become one of the more dangerous and crime-prone jobs in the city centre.
How could this happen? To me it is clear: a combination of general cultural decline and the good intentions of progressives turning out to be mistakes – visible in the excessive leniency of the justice system and the police – has produced a new generation of dead-eyed young people, people who can only be described as morally depraved.
As snooty as it may sound, the fact is that when gang violence reaches Waitrose and M&S, something has gone terribly wrong. Not because Waitrose customers deserve peace and quiet more than Tesco and Asda customers, but because it shows how crime and violence is spreading.
To see where things are heading, we can look at the Co-op, which has branches across the UK and, as its website states, has spent “more than £200 million in recent years” on security.
Several optimistic texts detail the installation of “smart” video surveillance systems and smart water “fog systems” to confuse thieves looking for the exit, as well as reinforced kiosks and a system called MySafety that allows staff to report crimes via personal devices and body-worn cameras.
Nevertheless, the cooperative said in April that the number of cases of shoplifting, abuse, violence and anti-social behaviour had increased by 44 percent in 2023 compared to 2022, amounting to around 1,000 per day.
Unless the Labour Party succeeds in changing British public policy – which seems extremely unlikely – we will end up like the shops on the American west coast, where everything from water bottles to toothpaste are stuck on the shelves and have to be retrieved by staff.
It’s a sad and bizarre thought: orange juice and toilet paper chained to the shelves of Waitrose.
What is also sad is that more and more electronic eyes will be needed to monitor shoppers – not because I find that intrusive, but because it reminds us of how much the social contract seems to have been destroyed.
This moral decay is a wider problem in youth culture. City dwellers have become accustomed to the feeling of pervasive malevolence, while knife crime seems to have spiralled out of control. But it is the utter lack of remorse shown by the killers in the dock that sends a shiver down the spine and foreshadows the troubles we will soon face.
Getting tough on crime is one thing. Convincing Britain’s new feral youth to grow up is another, and far more difficult, task.