Poem
for Roger McGough
by Adrian
Henri
‘A
nun in a supermarket
Standing in the queue
Wondering what its
like
To buy groceries for two.’
Most
folk waiting in a checkout queue at a supermarket, or anywhere else,
are probably think, 'kin hell, how much is all this going to cost
along with, why don't they open more checkouts, this queue is
ridiculous.
When
socialists are in a queue the thought that runs through their mind
is, why aren't the working class working toward socialism because
then there would be no queueing up to pay because in socialism there
is no money, goods are produced for free access..
Before
the shilling for capitalism brigade respond with, oh, so socialists
condone theft! Yes we do, but the theft we condone on the measures
implemented by the minority capitalist class to exploit the majority
class.
‘Retail
crime in the UK has reached unprecedented levels, with soaring losses
from theft and rising violence against workers, the British Retail
Consortium (BRC) has reported.
According
to its latest annual crime survey,
shoplifting in the country has reached an all-time high, with more
than 20 million incidents committed last year as of August 31, which
equates to 55,000 a day. This cost retailers a total £2.2 billion
($2.7 billion), adding further pressure to the mounting costs
retailers already face.
Violence
and abuse against retail staff also spiked, with daily incidents
exceeding 2,000, up from 1,300 reported the previous year. This marks
a more than threefold increase from 2020, when the daily average was
just 455. Weapon-related incidents doubled, reaching 70 per day.
“Retail
crime is spiraling out of control,”
said BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson. “People
in retail have been spat on, racially abused, and threatened with
machetes.”
The
BRC report suggested that many of the incidents were linked to
organized crime, with gangs systematically targeting stores across
the country, often stealing tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of
goods and moving around multiple stores.
“Every
day this continues, criminals are getting bolder and more
aggressive,”
Dickinson warned.
According
to the survey, satisfaction with the police response to incidents
remains low, with 61% of respondents describing it as ‘poor’ or
‘very poor.’
“With
little faith in police attendance, it is no wonder criminals feel
they have a license to steal, threaten, assault and abuse,”
Dickinson argued.
Responding
to the report, police have claimed they have made “significant
strides”
in tackling retail crime over the past year.
The
country’s new Labour government has pledged to address the rise in
retail crime through stronger measures.
Latest
data by S&P Global shows that retail sales in the UK continued to
fall in January after a disappointing Christmas, and consumer
confidence has dropped to its lowest level since late 2023.
Employers
also slashed jobs at the fastest pace since the height of the Covid
pandemic in 2021. Excluding the health emergency, the rate of
job-cutting was the highest since the global financial crisis in
2009.
The
UK is facing a “stagflationary
environment,”
where sluggish economic growth coincides with high inflation, said
S&P chief business economist Chris Williamson, as quoted by The
Guardian.
A
separate report issued by the BRC this week showed that British food
prices have recorded their sharpest monthly rise since last April,
marking an “early
sign of what’s ahead”
for the economy. Year-on-year, the cost of food in January jumped
1.6% from the previous year.
Dickinson
has also warned that retailers would soon face the full impact of £7
billion (nearly $9 billion) in new costs introduced in the last
budget by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves. Reeves has
announced an overhaul to Britain’s benefits system, to “kickstart
economic growth.”’
The
Proper Gander column from the September 2020 issue of
the Socialist Standard
‘The
High Street was already on the financial skids before the pandemic,
which has sped up the shift to online shopping. And these days, going
to the shops has the added considerations of facemasks, social
distancing, arrows on the floor and sanitisers by the doors, making
it more of an ordeal than before. Despite all this, slick,
brightly-lit shopping malls are still there to tempt those looking
for either retail therapy or a five-finger discount. The latter were
the focus of Channel 5’s recent Shoplifters: At War With
The Law. This fly-on-the-wall documentary series follows the
security guards and their quarries at two interchangeable shopping
centres: West Orchards in Coventry and Weston Favell in Northampton.
It was filmed pre-Covid 19, so since the cameras left, the guards are
presumably on the hunt for people not wearing masks as well as people
not paying.
According
to the programme’s voiceover, last year, there were 400,000
shoplifting incidents reported nationwide, with the number of those
that go undetected estimated to be 20 times higher. Of course, we
don’t see any of these, and the shopping centres understandably
want the programme to emphasise the chances of getting nabbed.
Regardless of this, the show has plenty of tips for would-be
pilferers, such as going with a group of friends to distract the
guards while items are slipped into pockets elsewhere. And higher-end
goods with electronic tags attached can be dealt with by snipping
them off with pliers or hiding them in a bag lined with foil so they
don’t set off the door alarms.
Watching
out for all this are hundreds of HD CCTV cameras, whose footage is
relayed back to each shopping centre’s control room. When the guard
on duty there sees someone acting shiftily or gets a tip-off from one
of the shops, they can radio down to their colleagues to find their
target. It’s all quite sad to watch this game of cat-and-mouse,
although a couple of the guards get a kick out of their work. ‘I
always catch my prey,’ boasts one, ‘that’s why I do my job. I
love it’. The guards can only apprehend someone once they’ve left
a store, although they cynically assume ‘anybody that’s in the
shop is a shoplifter until they go to the till’. Those who are
caught are led to a bleak holding room to be questioned and have
their bags searched. The police will be called if the person has
‘gone equipped’ with a foil-lined bag or pliers, or if what they
have stolen is valued at over £200. If the goods are worth less than
this the police won’t usually be involved and instead, a year-long
ban from the shopping centre is issued. If the accused says they have
no ID, they’re asked to bring up their social media profile
instead. Their name, address and date of birth are taken, as is a mug
shot for the database. If they are seen to return to the centre, they
will be trespassing and the police will be called. The guards have
had plenty of practice with the procedure: the West Orchards team
‘take down’ up to ten shoplifters a day, as they put it.
The
programme-makers blur out the faces of the people caught, which also
has the effect of emphasising how dehumanising the need to shoplift
is, and the rituals around it. Some of the people featured have been
recruited by gangs, and probably have very little choice in the
matter. They tend to be from Eastern Europe, not able to claim
benefits and without much chance of securing better paid work, which
makes them vulnerable to exploitation from organised gangs. Most of
the value of any successfully shoplifted goods is likely to go to the
gangmasters, with those who take the risks receiving little back; a
more extreme version of mainstream employment. These gangs tend to
move between areas once they become too well-known in one place.
Nearly three quarters of shoplifting in West Orchards is carried out
by a small group of local repeat visitors. Many of these are
homeless, with or without a benefit claim, either stealing to get
enough food or to fund a drug habit. One man speaks to the camera
crew after he’s thrown out for the umpteenth time: ‘I’ve got
nothing. I ain’t got no-one. But … I’ve got the shops.’ The
guards tend to treat those who are pushed into shoplifting by poverty
with some sensitivity, as long as they don’t get lairy.
But Shoplifters:
At War With The Law doesn’t want us to feel too
sympathetic towards people who steal. Its voiceover makes the point
that shoplifting ‘takes more than £2 million out of tills every
day’, and that to make up for these losses shops have been ‘ramping
up prices for millions of honest shoppers’. It’s easy to claim
that theft raises prices, but this falsely implies that retailers
would lower prices below the market rate if people stopped stealing,
which of course no retailer would ever do, so it just scapegoats
people who shoplift and provides an alibi for inflated prices. The
costs of security measures and stolen items do impact on the
profitability of goods to some extent, so the chain store owners will
be keen to clamp down on shoplifting. But a few pinched bottles of
perfume or boxes of chocolates are nothing compared to the billions
of pounds creamed off by owners and shareholders.’
Mike
Foster
https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/09/ive-got-nothing-i-aint-got-no-one-but.html