Monthly Archives: August 2014

It may sound like I am out to lunch, but there are some powerful arguments for socialised convenience shopping. We could introduce a new system that could smash the establishment, increase diversity, decrease carbon emissions, and ensure that you can always buy salt and vinegar crisps.

Why is it madness to nationalise the unco-ordinated, chaotic sprawl of corner shops across the country? We know nationalisation is popular, so let’s have more of it. Especially of small businesses, because, actually, Margaret Thatcher was the first person to care about them. Yeah. Thatcher.

For starters convenience shops are an obvious natural monopoly. Also, the current fragmented system is inefficient. Yes,  that’s right, the fragmented inevitable monopoly. If that doesn’t make sense nothing does. And the fact is that you cannot just go in and buy anything you – like my book – in most of the nation’s stores. The reason for this is that the shops are putting profits ahead of people.

The eternal irritation of the corner shop user is that that it will be slightly more expensive than larger shops and cannot have everything you want. This affects everyone. Sometimes even David Cameron. It also affects Richard Brown in Brighton who you have never heard of. He paid three pounds over the odds for pretty mediocre bottle of Ernest & Julio Gallo wine last week.

Darren in Southend reports a grim tale of austerity-fuelled despair from his local corner shop: although they will usually have Kit-Kats they will never have chunky Kit-Kats. Anyone who thinks they half-understand Keynesian economics knows that chunkiness can unleash animal spirits and kickstart the economy. Why do the Tories do this? Why do the Lib Dems let them?

The reality is that we all know what can go wrong in a corner shop. John in South London was once given the wrong change. Brenda in Rochdale was once given a pack of Marlboroughs rather than Lights. It is the unique horror of capitalism not only to be a system in which people make mistakes, but you have to take your business elsewhere rather than write a letter of complaint.

The real mistake though is to think the corner shop is a triumph of the private sector. Who built those corners in the first place? The government that’s who. As for the goods they stock, well many consumer goods industries probably only got off the ground because of big government orders for everything from the 18^th century Royal Navy to the 1940s US armed forces.

The reality is that what we have here is a natural monopoly, because, err because, how can each corner have more than one shop? Oh, and if it isn’t a monopoly, if there are two convenience shops on one street, well how wasteful and inefficient is that? They stock the same goods and sell at the same prices, as if they have the same customers and suppliers and people want mostly the same stuff.

The case for nationalisation is overwhelming once you are glib and simplistic about it. We could create an integrated corner shop network, with stores precisely separated and always stocked to meet people’s needs, not the needs of the corporations. Susan from Portsmouth need never again go to the shop and find that there is no Monster Munch for her 6 year old. Profits could then be reinvested in a high-tech, low carbon, diversity programme delivered on the Guardian website.

Under people’s ownership the shops could then be ethical, with no products made by Israelis, or for some reason no one quite understands, Gazans either. Procurement of goods for the shop could also be used to  drive a green industrial revolution, which is a really great idea, just like coal mines were.

Of course this wouldn’t be run by a bunch of bureaucrats, oh no. It would be run by a true people’s panel, composed of people, good people, chosen to sit on a panel. We could then have true diversity in ownership. I haven’t looked into it but I am willing to bet that corner shops are owned by the usual public school elite. Finally, we can smash that system and spread ownership to all in society. Has anyone thought of what some of the ethnic minority communities could deliver through a socialised system?

All this doesn’t have to be costly either. Everyone could have their corner shop compensated for with a free BBC license, Guardian subscription and copy of my book.

Far-fetched? Next time you are in a store open long after your surgery, school council office or Job Centre Plus has closed but, cruelly, oh so cruelly, it doesn’t stock pork scratchings, you ask yourself if it’s far-fetched. And if you happen to agree with me I will quote you like it’s Gospel.

Because let’s face it, nationalisation offers one thing for sure, a chance to put losses before people.

If you wish to know why the Israelis are the Israelis the question was answered very simply this week: they used to be a people like the Yazidis. They used to be the victims of brutal violence meted out by implacable oppressors. History has taught them the importance of choosing very determined self-defence instead.

The reality is that the Israelis are not alone in facing this choice. Yesterday a man called Sam Harris wrote an excellent blog concluding that we are all Israelis. I think he is wrong. I think we risk being forced to choose between being like the Israelis or Yazidis. Most of us don’t want the choices facing either people. To avoid those choices we need to start taking security more seriously right now.

In practice the vagaries of history did not leave the Yazridis with the chance to effectively defend themselves and they are trapped in tragedy. We in the West are more fortunate. We will not have really have to make hard choices either this time, because ISIS surely will be stopped far away from us. We are remote and part of a powerful alliance. ISIS’ dreams of global conquest will not become our nightmare. This does not mean ISIS’ actions do not have implications. The slaughter of the Yazidis  and other Iraqi minorities is appalling, and our hearts should reach out, and there should be humanitarian and military steps taken. We should be quite clear that what is being done by ISIS is an attack on the entire human race. But our minds need to turn also to the challenge of preventing similar tragedies happening to others.

The important point, the critical point which the Israelis, Hamas, and ISIS understand, and which, for example, those still demonstrating over Gaza do not, is that the line between security and helplessness is in fact very, very thin. The gap between being powerful and being helpless is small, and can close very quickly. The fact that ISIS seem to cause revulsion amongst the entire Muslim world, and that their numbers are small, should actually give us cause for worry not relief: a small number of people can cause a lot of damage and disruption in a very short space of time.

What is happening to the Yazidis almost certainly couldn’t happen to you and is highly unlikely to happen to your children, but if you don’t think that history could turn in a way that makes it a real possibility for your grandchildren then you are a fool. I don’t say the future threat will necessarily be from the heirs to ISIS. In a world of great insecurity it could equally from White Supremacist neo-fascists. This is why security and international order must always be our focus, not the villain of the month.

And it is this general insecurity that we should reflect on when we turn the news on each morning and the bad news from Russia or the Middle East floods in. Every time the violence gets worse, or closer, or the tyrants more powerful that gap  between power and helplessness closes a little. The West’s freedom to act is a little diminished, our power constrained. Then one day we will wake up and there is no freedom to act at all.

The reality is that in a darkening world we need moral rearmament followed by real rearmament. The earlier we decide to stand up to tyranny and build security the less likely we shall be forced to choose between being like the Israelis or Yazidis.