I was quite taken by today’s Mail on Sunday in which they were giving away figurines and ornaments of great Nazis from history. Over the next few weeks, Mail readers can celebrate the world’s rich history of mass murder and genocide. This week, it’s a life size model of Rothermere favourite Adolf Hitler and next week there’s the chance to win and all expenses trip to Moscow, hosted by President Putin, with an added collection of ‘Ukraine Invasion 2022’ souvenir mugs. I have made this all up but that’s pretty well how I expect the newspaper which literally supported Hitler before the Second World War to behave. Rather disappointingly, the main stories are about Tesco supermarket staff requiring body cameras and a woman called Trinny (no, nor me) who concludes that “sex completes you as a woman“. The Tesco supermarket staff story is somewhat concerning.
Some 200 Tesco workers are subject to “serious physical assault” every month, according to the Mail. It’s all down to an epidemic of lawlessness and anti-social behaviour, leading to the assertion that Britain is broken. Well, yes. I’ve been saying that for years but for some reason the Mail doesn’t seem to reach the same conclusion as to why it is broken, which is, very clearly, 13 years of Conservative misrule, all supported by … The Mail.
Tesco’s CEO writes in today’s paper (I am not going to link it: why give those toads another click?) that it’s the fault of the police who fail to attend two thirds of “serious retail crime” and it’s costing them a lot of money, which by now you will have obviously worked out that the loss of money is the real reason he is complaining. I’m a little old fashioned and would regard the safety of low paid, hard-working supermarket workers as paramount, but losing £1 billion a year through thievery is far more significant to the chief suit.
It was David Cameron who used the attack line ‘Broken Britain‘ before the 2010 election when it wasn’t broken. Inflation was still low, as well interest rates and fuel bills, NHS waiting lists were virtually non existent and food banks were a rarity. Now we live in a country where nothing seems to work and everything really is broken and the Mail doesn’t seem to realise the Conservative party it supports, when there isn’t a serious Nazi option available like Hitler or Oswald Mosley’s versions, is to blame.
I worked on the front line in the DWP for much of my working life so I understand the concerns of supermarket workers. Even in food banks, volunteers are subject to abuse and, occasionally, violence and just last week I experienced the simmering aggression from one user at the food bank. I am not suggesting for one moment that food bank volunteers need body cameras – well, not yet anyway – but a country as economically divided as ours, with public services crumbling, in terms of schools, literally, before our eyes, who can be shocked, or even surprised, when desperate people turn to desperate measures?
Not that long ago, I was in a local supermarket passing through – Surprise! Surprise! – the spirits aisle where I saw a woman wrenching the security device off a Vodka bottle to put in her bag. I sought out the security man who wasn’t there and instead warned the staff by the tills. “That’s her,” I said, as she passed by, in a real hurry. The staff looked around, saw no security guard and shrugged their shoulders. “It happens all the time,” said a young female staff member. And that was it. if it had been me, body camera or not, I’d have left her to it as well. With no security guard around and a massively under-resourced police force struggling to keep up with more serious crime, never mind a stolen bottle of Vodka, why, if it was me, would I want to confront a Vodka thief for £11 an hour? Sod that.
Definitely give staff body cameras and provide them with protective clothing if necessary, but the Mail could perform a more useful public service by homing on the real reason for Broken Britain: the Conservative and Unionist party.
Doubtless, the Mail would point out the positive aspects to fascism, like how Mussolini made the trains run on time, it’s important to add that under Rishi Sunak you’re lucky if the trains run at all. And the Mail can get as angry as it likes, but the truth is they offer uncritical support for those who have presided over the “crime epidemic sweeping ‘Broken Britain’. So, it’s their fault, too.
