{"id":447,"date":"2025-02-25T10:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T11:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/?p=447"},"modified":"2025-07-13T14:54:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T14:54:17","slug":"welcome-to-britain-in-2025-where-there-is-a-heist-in-my-local-shop-and-no-one-is-surprised-zoe-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/25\/welcome-to-britain-in-2025-where-there-is-a-heist-in-my-local-shop-and-no-one-is-surprised-zoe-williams\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to Britain in 2025 \u2013 where there is a heist in my local shop and no one is surprised | Zoe Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

E<\/span>verything was going so well in my local Co-op. I\u2019d gone in for vape juice, which they often run out of. I could see my preferred brand and I was having a comradely moment with the assistant, who is only too used to my crestfallen face when I have to make do with blueberry flavour. Then, right next to me, a man started to slither through the adjacent service hatch. The first I made of it was that the friction of his body against the counter was pulling his trousers down. I was close enough to see the whites of his pants, which were not that white. I thought: \u201cThat young man should really wear a belt next time he tries to hijack the till-cockpit of a Co-op.\u201d Then: \u201cNO WAY! That young man is hijacking the Co-op!\u201d<\/p>\n

He was wearing a face bandana, so he had at least got that far with his accessorising, and he yelled at the lady to get out from behind the tills, then let his two friends in. It was a classic in-through-the-trapdoor, open-the-drawbridge manoeuvre. The manager was on the phone to the police, saying in neutral tones: \u201cRobbery in progress, robbers in the building,\u201d as they piled cigarettes into three giant bags-for-life, which they had definitely stolen from their mums in advance. The planning was meticulous. We watched for a few seconds, fascinated. I asked the lady if she thought we should hide and she made a noncommittal noise that I have spent ages since deciphering. It was something in the realm of \u201cthey\u2019re just kids, they\u2019re probably not armed\u201d; she is probably not paid enough to defend the cigarettes.<\/p>\n

At least three shoppers hadn\u2019t even noticed what was happening. I decided to go round telling everyone: \u201cLook, robbery in progress, robbers in the building,\u201d because I am, first and foremost, a newspaperwoman<\/em>. One guy just looked up from the ice-cream momentarily and went back to his selection. Fresh people kept coming in to the shop. It\u2019s amazing how fast an atmosphere can be determined, yet how little it interrupts anyone\u2019s plans. \u201cWeird vibe. Ah, heist in progress. But I\u00a0still\u00a0need hummus.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trio escaped before the police arrived. I\u00a0offered to stay as a witness, and they said: \u201cNo,\u00a0we have security cameras.\u201d I wanted to point out that cameras will give you nothing but three young men with their faces covered, whereas, with my prose, you\u2019ll have them apprehended in no time.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

But what did I usefully notice? Three young men with their faces covered \u2013 and a whole lot of vibes. The staff seemed as if they had got to a point of such pure resignation that it was almost religious. Not bored, not fretful, just absolutely and completely Zen.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, I wish I had left ice-cream man to his own devices and spent my time asking how often this happened, to bring them to\u00a0this state of inner peace. Shoplifting is out of control, in\u00a0prevalence and brass-neckery, according to figures released last\u00a0month<\/a>. In the year to September 2024, shoplifting offences reported by police in England and Wales rose by 23%, to nearly 500,000. That is more incidents than in any year since records began, in 2003.<\/p>\n

The sheer ubiquity freezes everyone\u2019s will to act, but it\u2019s still incredibly, disproportionately shocking to watch. It\u2019s not that I particularly care about the Co-op, nor even because the sight of scofflaws openly scoffing, right there in broad daylight, is remarkable \u2013 like seeing the sky go green.<\/p>\n

Rather, it is the sight of society unspooling. The cigarette to minimum wage ratio is just too huge. The value of everything \u2013 Calpol, wine, dog food \u2013 is too tantalising. The old norms, such as it\u2019s\u00a0better not to steal than to steal, have given way. I\u2019m not saying the bandits have a point, just that banditry is where we are.<\/p>\n

As the thieves ran out of the shop, I said: \u201cI guess some vape juice is out of the question?\u201d and the woman replied: \u201cYeah, sorry, this is a crime scene.\u201d Afterwards, my kid said: \u201cYou should have just stolen some. It sounds really easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/span> Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everything was going so well in my local Co-op. I\u2019d gone in for vape juice, which they often run out of. I could see my [Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-make-money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450,"href":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions\/450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birthdayvoucher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}