Why are we Brits so submissive?

ONE thing that’s surprised me during the pandemic panic has been the willingness – in fact, eagerness - of the public to be told what to do, even when the edicts of our authorities are patently illogical or contradictory.

Our Prime Minister (God help us!) makes a stupid fuss about Rule Britannia at the Proms and our right to bawl that “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves,” and then expects students to slavishly accept rules that turn them into prisoners paying through the nose for their own detention by private security guards. Which is immoral, if not illegal.

We have to accept that we won't be allowed to sit and sip a coffee in Costa if we don't use their track and trace system, which requires a smartphone. It happened to someone I know in Salisbury the other day.

I don’t mind jotting down my name and address in a restaurant in case they need to contact-trace me, but there must be plenty of people who can’t use a smartphone-based system, so now it appears it’s OK to treat them as undesirables. And we meekly swallow it along with our cappucino.

Support local independents, that's what I say!

This same friend tells me she was shopping in Tesco this week when a very attractive cut-price offer caught her eye.

Then she spotted the caveat. It was for Clubcard holders only. There were lots of other deals to which the same limitation applied.

Now everyone knows that store cards are designed to gather information about our individual shopping habits and lifestyles. They can gauge our financial health by how much we spend, and a lot about our physical health by what we spend it on, whether that’s remedies for piles or ten bottles of gin.

It’s no surprise to me when Waitrose send out occasional money-off coupons that just happen to apply to the groceries we buy most frequently.

But now I come to think about it, that’s not much better.

Offering bargains only to people who sign up to have their lives pried on by supermarket spyware. Is that really right?

The Tesco-shopping friend in question always pays cash. She refuses to have store cards of any description, precisely because she values her privacy.

That might be a step too far for most of us.

But do question, regularly, what you’re giving away about yourself to businesses and the authorities, on and offline, and what they do with it.

And be careful. Ask yourself what they have done to earn your trust.