Retailers won’t need reminding that Britain sits firmly in the grip of an epidemic with no known cure. Yup, shoplifting.
What may surprise you, as it did Under The Counter, is that Westminster is the shoplifting capital of the UK.
So says price comparison website Money.co.uk. But what do they know? They don’t even have any talking wee mongooses or obese opera singers as brand ambassadors.
Overcoming his initial astonishment, UTC was quick to theorise why this might be so. Not Money.co.uk’s lack of a brand ambassador, but Westminster’s shoplifting surge.
His far-fetched conclusion: organised gangs of light-fingered MPs.
Not a massive fan of politicians, UTC was quick to tar our elected members with a brush he’d dipped in tales of lockdown parties, backhanders, bungs, lying, cheating and – closest to the Auld Boy’s heart – the fiddling of expenses. He also cited a dubious stat from 2012 that 43% of sitting MPs had a criminal record. There’s a joke in there about a Vengaboys album, but space is short.
And just supposing rampaging hordes of MPs were stripping shelves, is there anything in the Houses of Parliament gift shop worthy of the old five-finger discount?
You could do worse than a 170g Chocolate Big Ben. Nick that and you’ve saved yourself a whopping eight quid. Just pray that it tastes better than it looks.
