OPINION – VANESSA FELTZ: Shoplifting will not be a victimless crime.
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a press release within the media briefing at Downing Avenue (Picture: AP)
I’ll allow you to in on a secret. We radio phone-in hosts have a batch of tried and trusted topics we all know are assured to set the telephone traces buzzing. One, in fact, is potholes. There isn’t a listener within the land with out an impassioned view on the topic. One other is pie. Everybody remembers that Proustian second when the style of their grandmother’s apple and blackberry sauce encased in crisp shortcrust burst upon their toddler tongue. Cyclists evoke love and loathing in equal measure. But, in 2026, one challenge – and I do know there’s a struggle on – eclipses all others. Women and gents, I provide you with SHOPLIFTING.
Ask callers in the event that they’ve seen it/performed it/ been the victims of this nefarious epidemic of petty pilfering or organised crime, and also you activate an avalanche. My very own producer was locked into his native charity store when a down-at-heel chap was caught stealing underwear. Customers have been detained till police got here to cope with the miscreant. Most felt sorry for the guy lowered to nicking secondhand Y-fronts.
We’ve all seen a pale, shabby particular person shoving bananas into their coat pockets and been flooded with compassion, not censure. We’ve witnessed apparent addicts frantically purloining objects with shaking fingers and wished they might be helped, not punished.
More and more, although, most of us have additionally seen the balaclava-wearing criminals, sweeping complete cabinets of costly items into enormous sacks, typically wielding baseball bats and even knives, defying safety guards to strive stopping them as they haul away their swag. They openly swoop repeatedly on the identical chains, realizing that safety employees usually are not allowed to put a hand on them, and they’ll escape unscathed.
In the identical week M&S beseeched London Mayor Sadiq Khan to deploy extra sources to guard retail employees from assault and deter shoplifters, and Iceland boss Lord Walker argued passionately in favour of Spanish-style truncheons to help in-store safety, Keir Starmer’s Authorities quietly carried out new sentencing tips that might permit 12,000 shoplifters to keep away from jail and a long-serving Waitrose worker was fired for attempting to cease a person stealing Easter eggs.
Shoplifting will not be a victimless crime. Thieves have been handed a licence to steal objects price as much as £250 with out penalty. Sincere clients find yourself footing the invoice.
Callers urged guard canine, admission by loyalty card and naming and shaming perpetrators earlier than pelting them with rotten tomatoes. Retail staff are scared and pissed off. Police are skinny on the bottom. Repeat offenders roam free. Who will ship us from this lawless chaos?
It is by no means ‘only a kiss’
Belief plain-speaking Sharon Stone, 68, to spill the beans on Hollywood’s greatest kisser. She’s puckered up with heartthrobs Michael Douglas, Richard Gere and Sylvester Stallone, however her warmest phrases are for Robert De Niro, 82, who kissed her “proper out of my footwear” once they have been filming On line casino in 1995.
So stratospheric was the snog that each enthusiastically agreed to director Martin Scorsese’s request for a completely pointless retake. I stay astounded by the truth that a kiss is most undoubtedly by no means “only a kiss”.
The assembly of lips is so devastatingly unpredictable. Kissing a chap you love will be the dampest of squibs, whereas smooching a fellow you don’t like a lot and even fancy can spark comets. Until you strive you possibly can’t know inform prince from frog. One of the best half, in fact, is that sampling is free, enjoyable and doesn’t get you pregnant.
Controversial rap star Kanye West, on tour in China, has been banned from Britain. Good! (Picture: Getty)
We deserve solutions on this reserving
Fortunately the live performance has now been cancelled however whoever thought it was sensible to e book Kanye West, AKA Ye, to headline London’s Wi-fi Competition within the first place? This man has a historical past of antisemitic feedback and as additionally praised Hitler?
The world’s riven with hatred. There have been 3,700 racist assaults towards Jewish folks within the UK in 2025, together with the primary deadly antisemitic terrorist assault on British soil since data started, at Manchester’s Heaton Park Synagogue. 4 ambulances funded by a Jewish charity providing non-denominational assist to the sick and injured have been set on hearth final month.
Britain’s Jews reside with concern and bewilderment. Wi-fi is meant to be life-affirming. Crowds collect to have a good time music, sunshine and freedom. West disseminates division and bigotry. The sponsors have been proper to withdraw help however the query stays who thought West was an excellent match for Wi-fi?
You have not lived till you have given this a go…
If you’re watching the pennies and want furnishings, head straight to your nearest public sale home. Mark Ellin, companion at Burstow and Hewett in East Sussex, has simply offered an beautiful George III mahogany bookcase for £400.
He has the proprietor’s unique receipt from 1989. He shelled out £29,000. Houses are shrinking, tastes are altering and superbly made furnishings is now cheaper than gimcrack garbage cobbled collectively out of MDF.
Eating rooms have disappeared, so gloriously elegant tables and chairs go for a music. Mid-century furnishings – assume Ercol or G-plan – is all the trend. All the things else goes for peanuts. Shopping for at public sale will not be merely a fertile supply of bargains; it’s additionally eco-friendly and large enjoyable.
I defy you to not get carried away, waggle your paddle and find yourself with a field of ‘work’ you haven’t had the frequent sense to examine prematurely. Put that all the way down to expertise. You haven’t lived till you’ve bid £67 for an intricately inlaid stitching desk and located it filled with needles and thread.
Maintain it merry and fluffy… for now!
On-line daters are pursuing “whimsy”. They lengthy for light-heartedness and, as a reluctant singleton, I perceive why. Older daters are bowed down by baggage. They limp into what is meant to be a romantic rendezvous, prostrate with the burdens of divorce and disappointment.
Incapable of indulging in fanciful banter or saucy joshing, they mistake tales of betrayal, sickness, bereavement and wretchedness for appropriate first date dialog. The temper is sombre. The tone is dreary and downbeat.
Flirtation, badinage and leisure are tragically missing. Right here’s the factor: I’ve by no means met you. I don’t know you. Don’t inform me about your mom’s dementia, your varicose veins or your bankruptcies.
Maintain it merry and fluffy till I care about you. Then, after we are mutually attracted, steadily unleash the unhappy stuff gently and in small increments. Whimsy could appear twee and foolish, however it’s an entire lot sexier than distress.
An embarrassing begin to an everlasting love affair
Easter brings out the perfect in gardeners. Daffodils, narcissi, tulips, hyacinths, camelias and crocuses are blooming match to beat the band, and every part continues to be to play for. I’m heartened by the document variety of questions pouring into the Royal Horticultural Society from people cottoning on to the truth that tilling the soil soothes our psychological well being and consuming a home-grown tomato does magical issues to our vanity.
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My love affair with gardening started in pre-smartphone days. I had a number of dog-eared books for reference, however couldn’t work out why my single apple tree, lovingly tended and watered, did not bear fruit.
A easy Google would have advised me you want to plant not less than two totally different varieties to make sure pollination, and each should flower on the identical time. Let’s simply say apple crumble didn’t function on the menu at Feltz Towers for an embarrassingly very long time.
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