PETER HITCHENS: Brazen shoplifting across Britain is just the start… actual anarchy is now not very far off
The current wave of shoplifting is especially frightening. It is not some invented panic. And others close to me have witnessed it in recent days. Crucially, even the dimmest criminal has now realised that there is no real law in this country.
The problem has many causes. I do not think actual suffering is one of them. The old morality of this country has broken down.
In the miserable 1930s, when millions lived in such deprivation that it would make modern young people gasp to see, theft of any kind was extremely rare. At the same time, the police have almost entirely disappeared, so the fear of getting caught has shrivelled. The Prosecution Service and courts have played their part, by making it clear they are not interested in punishment. And large numbers of people have now noticed this.
Hence the man scooping up piles of fresh meat from an urban supermarket and heading straight for the exit – witnessed the other day by a woman well-known to me. She was shocked and cried out: ‘That’s stealing!’ He turned and grinned at her, before making an unhurried exit. He feared nothing.
The Co-op last week complained that many of its stores have been abandoned by the police (pictured: Co-op store targeted by thieves)
Thieves targeting a Co-op supermarket pictured as the chain accuses police of giving them ‘freedom to loot’
Twice in recent weeks I have been used as cover by obvious shoplifters at Marks & Spencer. The thieves have suddenly fallen into step with me as I have walked out of the store with my legal purchases. The alarm buzzers sound but shop staff cannot be sure which person has set them off. By the time they have worked it out, it is too late, even assuming they could have done much anyway.
READ MORE: Violent shoplifting gangs given the ‘freedom to loot’ by lax policing has left staff living under a reign of terror from armed thugs with almost 1,000 incidents a day, bosses warn
But this is nothing. The Co-op last week complained that many of its stores have been abandoned by the police. It says that the situation has become so bad, it may have to shut stores in some areas. Matt Hood, managing director of Co-op Food, explained how bad it has become: ‘I have seen some horrific incidents of brazen and violent theft in our stores, where my colleagues felt scared and threatened.
‘Too often, forces fail to respond to desperate calls by our store teams, and criminals are operating in communities without any fear of consequences.’ Shop workers who try to intervene are threatened with screwdrivers or knives. Gangs smash through doors.
Well, we know what will happen. Shops will hide expensive goods behind the counter, steel grilles will appear on windows, the numbers of people allowed into shops will be limited, staff will take refuge behind armoured screens, everything will become more expensive. Life will become dingy and unpleasant in a way our more deprived areas have known for years. But do you think it will end there?
This is a warning. Actual anarchy is not very far off.
Where people won’t restrain themselves from blatant dishonesty and are not ashamed of it, and where the police are a fond memory, who and what will be safe?
Yet, until our wealthy elite feel threatened, nothing will be done.
If we had a political party which believed in enforcing the law and punishing crime and in making the police force do its actual job, it would sweep the country. Alas, we do not have such a party.
How striking it is that, when we do so little about actual crime, we have become much readier to throw people into prison without proper evidence. The courage and principle of Andrew Malkinson, who endured 17 miserable years in prison rather than confess falsely to a crime he did not commit, is a challenge to every police officer, every prosecutor and every judge.
These people all have a fierce moral duty to avoid and stop miscarriages of justice. Yet, in the case of Mr Malkinson, wrongly accused of a filthy rape on the basis of feeble, tainted evidence, what did they do?
The trial should have been stopped, in my view, before it got under way. I have long said that the increasing gutlessness of our criminal justice system makes us all less free. Its very feebleness makes it look for easy victories and makes it less concerned with the basic rules about presumption of innocence.
The courage and principle of Andrew Malkinson (pictured), who endured 17 miserable years in prison rather than confess falsely to a crime he did not commit, is a challenge to every police officer, every prosecutor and every judge
Did a fear of homophobia protect a killer?
Beyond doubt the best thing on TV for ages has been The Sixth Commandment, the BBC dramatisation of the terrible murder of the retired teacher Peter Farquhar by the manipulator and fraud Benjamin Field. There’s the usual silly portrayal of the press, but we’ll have to live with that, I suppose. But the wickedness of Field’s actions makes the viewer’s blood boil. How did he so nearly get away with it? It was Field’s sinister siege of Mr Farquhar’s neighbour Ann Moore-Martin (he was 26, she was 83) which eventually caused her niece to raise the alarm and so alerted the police.
The age difference in the relationship was obviously suspicious.
But so it was during his invasion of the life of Peter Farquhar, during which the two men shared a bed and underwent a ‘betrothal’ ceremony.
Before Field came into his life, Mr Farquhar had been a repressed homosexual. Could it have been that some witnesses feared being accused of ‘homophobia’, one of the greatest sins of the modern age, and so squashed their suspicions?
SINISTER: Ben Field (Eanna Hardwicke) with Ann Moore-Martin (Anne Reid) in The Sixth Commandment
Has Nigel Farage really won a great victory over the forces of the Cultural Revolution? I don’t think so. The bank which tried to cancel him had to be dragged, almost by force, into admitting it had done anything wrong. Those who eventually resigned quite plainly had no real belief they had done anything wrong. Much of the Left-wing media and the Labour Party still think Mr Farage is exaggerating or protesting too much. Here’s the truth. Most British institutions, companies, media, educational establishments, churches etc are now in the grip of a severe, intolerant Left-wing dogma. We are in the twilight of free speech.
Amol’s quiz more of a Challenge than ever
I’ve tried the new rejigged University Challenge and I’m amazed anybody still watches it
I’ve tried the new rejigged University Challenge and I’m amazed anybody still watches it.
Most people could never hope to answer the incessant questions about science and mathematics, which have nothing to do with general knowledge. Its relentless political correctness about everything from art to dates is wearisome. And then there is the new chairman, Amol Rajan.
Mr Rajan is an engaging fellow and a good broadcaster but he does not sound as if he knows the answers, or in some cases as if he fully understands the questions he is asking.
For anyone of my generation, there is something very odd about the chairman of a high-end quiz saying ‘Haitch’.
I know that this has now become pretty much usual, and I know that plummy-voiced people, such as I am, should stay out of such things, but teachers back in the 1950s regarded this pronunciation as a sort of crime, and ruthlessly discouraged it. Now it’s growing wild.
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