Britain was once a nation of shopkeepers. But one wonders for how much longer. As if the combination of Amazon, councils’ parking charges and above-inflation business rate rises wasn’t bad enough, we now have a petition. Of course, we do. The petitions wants all large shops to be shut on Boxing Day, as they are on Christmas Day. It argues that the people who work in shops toil very hard in the run up to Christmas. This is true. It then argues, 'retail workers [should] be given some decent family time to relax and enjoy the festivities like everyone else'. Why? Why should the government legislate to ensure we can all relax? Because this is an 'Up The Workers' petition, it has attracted a large amount of support: 230,000 backers on Change.org and 140,000 on the Parliamentary petition website, which means it was debated in Westminster yesterday and backed by a number of MPs. Helen Jones, Labour MP for Warrington, said:
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'I think we are exercising our freedom to shop whenever we want on the backs of some very low-paid workers, who are being exploited and being denied the freedom to expect to have the time with their families.'
I don’t want to shop on Boxing Day. I would rather saw off both my legs than stand in the queue at 5am to dash into Next on Oxford Street. For me, Boxing day is old films, a big tin of Quality Street and installing AA batteries into kids’ toys. But I don’t expect the government to legislate for that.
In any case, banning shops opening on Boxing Day, is a terrible idea. Not least because shoppers would continue to flock online. This would put yet further pressure on those who operate bricks and mortar outlets - while shunting all the toil onto all those workers inside an Amazon warehouse. They certainly are not given the day off. And you couldn’t force Amazon, or for that matter John Lewis, to shut its website for the day. Those who demand sacrosanct family time on Boxing Day are fuelled by a phoney nostalgia, rooted in some very ropey history. To when should we turn back the clock? To 1843, the year when Dickens’ A Christmas Carol set in stone so many of the snow-around-the-gabled images and traditions we now associate with the festival? Well, if you remember the tale correctly, Ebenezer Scrooge awakes on Christmas morning and sends a boy to the poulterer's on the corner to buy the prize turkey in the window. The shop is open on Christmas Day.
Indeed, Boxing Day as a bank holiday was not introduced until the 1870s. Christmas Day matches were played in England as recently as the 1960s, and though they are no longer a feature of the sporting calendar, Boxing Day fixtures are hugely popular with the millions that attend. Few, if any, will feel sympathy for millionaire footballers, but why should all the security staff, burger sellers, toilet cleaners and parking attendants have to work on Boxing Day if retail staff are given the day off? So, too, all those working at Kempton Park, Market Rasen, Wincanton and all the other race meetings?
Pubs have long opened on Boxing Day - indeed, they are often the only refuge for those who want to escape the gruesome bonhomie of another round of Trivial Pursuit with the in-laws. But in recent years, restaurants have started to open on December 26 as we become a nation that increasingly eats meals out. All made possible by an army of workers, manning the kitchen and pulling pints.
In short, why should retailers be treated as a special case? Yes, they work hard during December, often miserably so, but so too do those who work in the leisure industry and I can’t see a petition for them. Of course, it would be lovely, if we collectively donned our walking boots and took to moors and fells of Britain on Boxing Day or played one large round of charades. But that isn’t going to happen. There is demand for shopping on December 26, a date that for decades has heralded the start of the Boxing Day Sales. The clue's in the name. And shops are filling that demand. When that demand falls, shops will no longer open on Boxing Day, as neatly proved by a lady named Bryony - a member of USDAW, the shopworkers union, and a supermarket worker, who was interviewed by the BBC. After complaining: 'I don't think people need to shop on Boxing Day. Why don't people just spend it with their families?' she admitted she was not working this year on December 26. 'The store I work in isn't actually open this year because previous years, where they've opened for Boxing Day, it hasn't really been worth it because not enough people shop', she explained.
That is a market economy in action. If no one shopped on Boxing Day, the shops wouldn’t open.