By Claire Bullivant.
Andrew Griffith MP is absolutely right, and I say that not as some remote observer, but as someone who lived through the dystopian consequences of exactly the same policy Labour is now proposing.
I lived in California for 14 years, mostly in LA but I spent a lot of time in San Francisco. I watched this far-left fantasy unfold in real time.
My friend ran 14 restaurants across the Bay Area. Within months of California decriminalising shoplifting under $950 in 2010, those restaurants were shuttered. The rot set in fast. People would come in, eat, and simply walk out. No payment. No shame. No punishment. And why should there be? The law had thrown up its hands. The message was clear: help yourself.
Eventually, my friend gave up and moved to Texas, along with tens of thousands of others fleeing California’s failed soft-on-crime experiment.
And it didn’t stop at restaurants. Soon, the high streets (or “main streets” as the Americans call them) became ghost towns. CVS, the American equivalent of Boots, put everything of value behind glass. Skin care, razor blades, toothpaste, make-up… each required a shop assistant and a key. It was like trying to buy perfume in a Soviet bunker. Shopping became a slow, demoralising experience for paying customers, while thieves simply swept armfuls of goods into bags and walked out with impunity.
Sound familiar? It’s happening here in the UK already. We’ve all seen those social media videos.
But now Labour wants to import this chaos further. As Conservative MP Andrew Griffith starkly laid out in his X thread, 98% of shoplifting prison sentences are under 12 months, the very sentences Labour wants to abolish. They’re not just cutting slack. They’re cutting the brake lines.
This isn’t about compassion. This is about cowardice.
Let’s talk about Tanya Liddle. Convicted over 170 times, over 400 offences. Under Labour’s plan, she’d face no prison at all. How can anyone look at that and still mutter the phrase “restorative justice” without choking?
And let’s be absolutely clear: shoplifting is NOT a victimless crime. It bleeds our high streets, drives up prices for working families, and brings daily threats to frontline retail workers. It is often part of a broader pattern of violence and antisocial behaviour. When the law steps back, the mob steps forward.
Andrew Griffith is right: Britain deserves better. The solution isn’t to pretend the problem doesn’t exist. It’s to enforce the law, and that means real consequences for repeat offenders.
Of course prison isn’t perfect. Of course reform is needed. But pretending shoplifters are harmless rebels “liberating” shampoo and wine for the revolution is not justice, it’s a fantasy. One I’ve seen before. One I escaped.
Britain must not become California. Andrew Griffith has sounded the alarm. Let’s hope it’s not ignored, before our high streets go the way of San Francisco’s.
Main Image: For illustration purposes only. Image created on AI.
