Rampant shoplifting is the ultimate symbol of our descent into anti-Western decadence
Take the grotesque moral inversion exhibited by Labour when it tells shopkeepers not to place 'high value' items close to store entrances, in effect blaming the victims of crime for enticing shoplifters. A minister, Dame Diana Johnson, complained that 'some stores…put bottles of alcohol at the front of the store which obviously people will nick.'
Note the use of the colloquial 'nick', which trivialises the violation, demonstrates an inability to take shoplifting seriously and implies that it is a cheeky, opportunistic, almost child-like act of rule-bending.
The rest of Johnson's intervention is equally reprehensible. Why would a passer-by 'obviously' feel compelled to grab a bottle if they happen to see it? What kind of excuse is that? Why couldn't they choose not to steal? Do they entirely lack agency? Are we 'noble savages', unable to control our impulses, or are we civilised, demanding self-control, deferred gratification and respect for moral tenets such as 'thou shall not steal'?
Labour, in common with many Tories, civil servants, charities and the police establishment, succumbed long ago to 'progressive' woke ideology. This divides the world into oppressors and oppressed, powerful and powerless, bad and good. Shop-owners are part of the capitalist class, and regardless of whether they are a major chain or the local independent corner shop, are tainted: they control the 'power structure' and are inherently guilty of racism, sexism and every sin.
Shoplifters are defined, equally reflexively, as oppressed, latter-day Jean Valjeans, after Victor Hugo's character in Les Misérables jailed for 19 years for stealing bread for his sister's starving children.
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