RUTH SUNDERLAND: Labor is failing the High Street

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. At least not in retail. Baby boomers and Gen

Now even young TikTokers are sadly reminiscing about the good old days of shopping, when ‘real bargains’ were offered on Black Friday.

The past they long for is not very far away: Amazon launched its first Black Friday deals in Britain in 2010. The concept, which has its origins in the US, where it is the start of the Christmas shopping season after their Thanksgiving celebrations, started there. Now Black Friday is entrenched and around 60% of UK retailers are participating.

Despite the fury on TikTok over relatively meager discounts – “I only get 10 or 15 percent off. What should I do with that?’ – the event encourages Britain’s armchair shoppers.

Buy now, pay later firm Klarna reported that sales in the first four days of ‘Black Week’ (their term, not mine) were up by more than a third on last year, and by 30 percent in the first six hours of ‘Black Week’. the day itself.

But it’s not an absolute blessing for the consumer sector, as small retailers fear being left out in the cold. Black Friday mainly benefits the big chains and online operators: a survey last weekend found that shoppers theoretically want to support independent businesses, but almost half plan to buy festive gifts from Amazon.

Christmas, when retailers earn a large proportion of their profits, will be a time of anxiety for many small shop owners.

As my colleagues at the Mail on Sunday reported yesterday, retailers in Rachel Reeves’ own constituency are furious – and fearful – at the costs imposed on them in the budget for extra employer insurance, lower business rates and higher wages.

One man was so angry that he wanted to deny the Chancellor access to his greengrocer’s shop.

A regular lament on social media sites in my home town of Middlesbrough is the decline of the city centre. It used to be vibrant, but after the closure of M&S and House of Fraser, both of which had been there for over 100 years, it’s just depressing.

The nearby Teesside Park shopping center is much busier, but also much less atmospheric than the hustle and bustle of Linthorpe Road.

Independent, quirky shops such as Boddy’s books or Romer Parrish, a magical toy shop from my childhood, are long gone, although the latter has been repurposed at the Beamish Museum in County Durham by popular demand from the city’s population.

The fate of Romer Parrish is in some ways a sad story about a disappearing company and a lost past, but it is also a testament to our emotional connection to the physical stores that are part of our lives. On the high street it is not just about buying things, but also about meeting friends, the bond between mother and daughter, coffee with the neighbor, making childhood memories, going into town to see the Christmas lights, the Fenwicks or the window of Fortnum.

Online shopping is great for its efficiency, convenience and price, but it does not arouse the feelings or warm the heart. Labor should be supporting our high streets, not pulverizing them with a misguided and destructive tax attack.