It’s been more than a week since Sean Egan, a manager at Morrisons in Aldridge, announced that he’d been sacked just for doing his job – for stopping a thief nicking booze – and national outrage over the whole affair is still running high. Sean is on morning TV as I write, donations to pay for his appeal rising steadily. In part, the fuss is a measure of sympathy. Sean worked at Morrisons for 29 years and was liked by the people of Aldridge. He was sacked, say Morrisons, because they have a “deter, don’t detain” policy – though what Morrisons think could possibly have deterred this thief, given his long list of previous convictions, is anyone’s guess.

But the feeling for Sean isn’t just a swell of support for one man; it’s also a symptom of wider frustration. Shoplifting across the nation is at the highest level since current records began two decades ago. Do nothing, we’re told, leave it to the police – but they also do nothing. And this is really why Sean Egan’s story has hit a national nerve. British people have watched the norms we grew up with unravel in just a generation – the old taboos lift like mist, against stealing, littering, yelling abuse. In February this year, half of all people polled admitted to dropping litter on the street. Yet we’re told, like Sean, not to act, to leave well enough alone.

There are more violent crimes than shoplifting, but because we all shop and because we see it around us, it’s especially corrosive. Shoplifters are committing a record number of repeat offenses, the Ministry of Justice has announced: an average of nine offenses per shoplifter. These people are escorted out nicely – “deterred” – then in they come again, entirely shameless. And because the consequences are so negligible, all manner of different groups have got in on the game.

British people have watched the norms we grew up with unravel in just a generation

British people have watched the norms we grew up with unravel in just a generation

There are the petty crooks and addicts, like the Morrisons man. Keep an eye out and you’ll see them filling their rucksacks. Security sees them too but no longer makes much of a move to stop them. They also target middle-class stores like Marks & Spencer, whose retail director explained recently the daily battle faced by staff: “In the past week alone we have had gangs forcing open locked cabinets and stripping shelves, two men brazenly emptying the shelves of steak and walking out, a large group of young people ransacking a store before assaulting a security guard, a colleague headbutted trying to defuse a situation and another hospitalized after having ammonia thrown in their face.”

On a different........

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