13 September 2023 , 21:24
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We make no apology for demanding robust action to halt the wave of shoplifting sweeping the country.
We despair at the state of lawless Britain where people brazenly steal without any fear of the consequences. And we deplore the way low-paid shopworkers are daily insulted and threatened for just doing their job. We have sympathy for those who cannot afford food. But we have none at all for those who have no respect for the law, for others or for hard-working staff.
Rishi Sunak calls the thefts unacceptable. But this is a crimewave made in Tory Britain. It was the Conservatives who effectively decriminalised shoplifting in 2014. They then compounded the problem by cutting police numbers and creating a cost-of-living crisis. They are responsible for the depressing face of modern Britain... a country where our shops are no longer safe and where common decency has been replaced by greed and abuse.
Wrong track
Tory MPs yesterday lined up to condemn the closure of railway ticket offices. They made clear to hapless Transport Minister Huw Merriman that he needed to intervene to halt this act of national vandalism. The MPs did not just voice their own anger, they expressed the fury of their constituents at the proposed axing of nearly 1,000 offices.
When ministers find themselves on the wrong side of their own MPs, the wrong side of passengers and the wrong side of the argument they should realise the game is up. The Government does not have to wait for the results of the public consultation, it has the power to stop these closures now.
Teachers, civil servants and train drivers walk out in biggest strike in decade
Fashion victim
More than two million Freemans catalogues were once delivered to our homes. Now the firm has decided to stop publication. It’s not just the designs in the brochure which have changed over the years. So have shopping fashions, with more and more of us buying online.