UK high streets were already on their knees, thanks to the rise of online shopping, Covid, the cost-of-living crisis, stagnating wages and Tory tax hikes.
Now Labour has administered the killer blow.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ terrifying talk of black holes and Budget tax raids destroyed confidence. Terrified shoppers stopped spending.
The economy shrank in September and October. In November, retail sales collapsed by 3.3%, as the British Retail Consortium (BRC) bemoaned a “bad start to festive season”.
December is looking just as bad, judging by the growing number Sales notices slapped up shopfronts. The ones that haven’t already been boarded up that is.
I’ve visited a few high streets in recent months and they break my heart. Too many are bleak, scruffy, windswept and abandoned.
Greggs and a handful of chains are holding the fort, but they’re surrounded by a mass of vaping shops, bookies and those weird American sweet shops that seem to be a front for something even more dubious.
A roll call of household names have gone into administration: Woolworths, Comet, BHS, Wilko, Peacock, Jaeger, Carpetright, The Body Shop, Ted Baker, Debenhams, Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Wallis, Oak Furnitureland, Monsoon, Beales, Aldo, Laura Ashley, Cath Kidston, Joules… need I go on?
Some have been bought out and reopened on a smaller scale, while others live a half-life online. Pharmacies, banks and pubs are closing too. This is carnage.
Many high streets now resemble the Soviet Union, AFTER the neutron bomb has dropped.
It’s good news for bargain hunters, I suppose, with Liberty, Sweaty Betty, Hobbs and even Harrods launching Boxing Day sales two weeks early.
But thinks look grim today. Next year will be even worse.
Reeves’ desperate decision to slap £25billion of extra national insurance charges on employers will deliver the last rites to UK high streets.
It will cost shops sector a staggering £7billion when it comes into force in April, according to the BRC.
Hiking the minimum wage by an inflation-busting 6.7% at the same time will only make things worse.
Retailers might might have been able to absorb the cost if the UK was booming, but we’re not.
Reeves is literally taxing businesses to death. What I’ve dubbed Labour’s economic Suicide Squad has administered yet another self-inflicted wound to the UK economy.
That’s not the only way Labour is killing shops. Energy secretary Ed Miliband’s green transition lunacy will drive their energy bills higher, further squeezing margins.
If your high street is still alive and kicking this Christmas, make the most of it. Next Christmas could be even tougher than this one.
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