Shoplifting has hit a record high because people are starving. But if you were to listen to the government, you’d think they should be executed for being hungry.

More than 430,000 shoplifting crimes were recorded in 2023 – up by more than a third on the number in 2022 – and probably a fraction of the true number.

But look at what the people interviewed in the BBC article have to say:

Items taken include bread, beer and wine – in other words, food and drink (I’m presuming the predilection for beer and wine indicates an “in for a penny, in for a pound” mindset).

And how about this?

Meanwhile, Laurence Guinness, head of London-based anti-poverty charity the Childhood Trust, said the high cost of living and families “on the breadline” had resulted in increased shoplifting offences.

“Money is not stretching far enough to meet the needs of the households,” he said.

“If you’ve only got £15 a week to feed yourself and your family, you might put a packet of chicken breasts in your bag and [think] if you get caught you’ll probably be OK.

“I’m not endorsing it, but I understand it and I think hunger is a very strong motivator of people taking things they just don’t have the money for.”

So there you have it: shoplifting has hit a record high because people are starving.

The reason they are starving is the high cost of living that the Tory government has imposed on us all by privatising utilities like energy and water with a false promise that bills would fall and then doing nothing when greedy shareholders pushed prices through the roof.

And what about supermarkets like Tesco, that increased its prices by twice as much as inflation when inflation was already high?

None of that is mentioned by the government’s mouthpieces in the article, though:

The Home Office said the rise in shoplifting was “unacceptable” and that it was working with police and retailers to crack down on retail crime.

Typical Tories. Rather than address a problem they have deliberately caused, they just want to blame its victims.

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