Longer opening hours on Sunday

I suppose it does, eloethan, but I think petallus took care to phrase it politely.

I agree that we make judgments all the time, anya, and even remarked that I was making a judgment on the shopping-centre-for-leisure mentality by choosing to do things other than that in my leisure time, as do (as I also said) most of the people I know. But my judgment on other people's shopping-centre-for-leisure mentality stops there as, I think, does petallus's and that of a few other posters who have taken part in the discussion.

I regard some of the comments as too judgmental. That's all I'm saying.

But, yes, I agree with what you said in your last post too. Things are never simply black and white.

I guess I've been arguing for a measure of "allowance" (not the right word; elegran, where are you? Need help with my diction!)

Tolerance. That's it. How about a bit more tolerance of other people's foibles?

Thanks, elegran. I guess you beamed it to me across the airwaves.

Eh? Did you call?

Do we know that the people we see in the shopping meccas with their children spend all their leisure time there, that they weren't at the science park yesterday and flying kites last week?

I am finding this hard.
I was asked why in my opinion I thought it was a sad reflection on society that "shopping " is seen by some as a hobby. So I gave my reasons and am instantly accused of being "judgemental". I am not an intolerant person, but if I did not have a reason for lamenting the idea that shopping can be seen as a leisure activity, I would not have said it in the first place. It seems you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
The economic reasons behind extending shopping hours which I touched on and Eloethan has expressed better than I, have been completely ignored.
Either extended shopping will generate more income for retailers, and if so, I assume that means more people spending more money. Have we all got more money to spend? Food banks, anyone?
Or there is only so much money to go round and the same amount of income to the retailers will be spread over longer opening hours. Retailers can't afford to incur losses, so the cost of wages, heating, lighting, distribution etc will be borne by you and me, the consumer.
Will it boost our economy as the Chancellor seems to think? I doubt it.

Still think there are better things to do on a Sunday. Like visiting Granny.

Yes, come and visit me please.

for what it is worth, I think it may be a good point that people are spreading their spending rather than spending more.

Could it be that retailers welcome the opportunity to open later on Sundays to combat the vast increase in internet shopping which, on a quick trawl through the thread, I don't think anyone has mentioned? If that is an expectation, I think it's illusory. I must plead guilty to a mild addiction to internet shopping as opposed to trailing round the aisles of chain stores. However, I can confirm that extending Sunday shopping hours is not conducive to an enhancement of family life for the employees who have to work those hours. I know someone in management in a well-known supermarket who contractually works every second weekend which involves working well beyond the 4pm closing time because of management commitments. She does have a day off in lieu during the week, but on those days the children are at school. Fortunately her partner doesn't have to work weekends and on the weekends when the family are all together, nothing could be further from their minds than going shopping!

Internet shopping must have made serious inroads into some shops' profits. I believe that was particularly apparent at Christmas, though why anybody would prefer to order from the comfort of their home when they could queue to get into a shopping centre car park and pay £2 an hour for the privilege while they jostle through crowds of equally suicidal determined shoppers, is beyond me.
John Lewis have found their Click and Collect so successful, they are confident they can get away with introducing a charge for orders under £30.
Anybody remember when John Lewis didn't even open on a Monday ?
Sometimes when I am in on a weekday evening or indeed a Monday morning, the store is virtually deserted. I find myself thinking who is paying for staffing shops at these "quiet" times. Oh yes, me

I agree with all you've said Alea and I didn't see anything judgemental in your posts.
Just a small point about internet shopping though.
I heard a senior JL person saying internet shopping had boosted their profits, because people browse online and then either buy stuff or go into the shop to have a look and then buy it.
Shops which have a physical presence and an online facility find the two complement each other.

Yes I can remember JL being closed on Mondays. Of course in those days in Newcastle it was Bainbridges!

Sorry, didn't mean to ignore your comments about the economics, alea. Not because I don't agree with them but because I simply don't know if what you've said represents a good forecast of what will happen. Shops usen't to open on Sundays. Now many do. Have their profits risen, fallen, or stayed the same since that happened? I don't know the answer to that either but when I compare how well-off 'society' seems to be compared with thirty years ago, it seems to me that, on average, people are better off than they were, that they have more money to spend on whatever leisure activities they choose to do. People have more stuff. This suggests to me that there is more wealth sloshing about the system than there was a generation and two generations ago. Being an optimisitic bod, I presume this will continue, and that view is backed by people far more knowledgeable than I about how the world is ticking over economically, Max Roser and his World Data project, for instance. Fascinating graphs which show that the world for humans really is getting better in many many ways.

As for judgmentalism or not in your posts, and some others, I can only give what is and was my impression. That's what I did, as well as giving my reason for that, namely that I don't feel it is my business to criticise what other people do if what they do strikes me as harmless. I guess the long and the short of it is that we have disagreed about what counts as harmless.

I don't regard that as a big deal any more than I regard many differences in political outlook where people actually want the same thing but have different ideas about how to of achieve the same thing.

Roll on more vigorous discussions, I say.

Is there more real wealth sloshing about though Bags or is it that the banks have printed money and injected it into the economy?
And that being in debt on credit cards is regarded by many people as nothing to worry about?
Are medical students who graduate £60K in debt really better off than those who graduated 20 years ago?

I don't know the answer to particular cases such as that of young medical students, jane. My observation, such as it is, is far more general. More people own cars and other expensive gadgets than used to and they acquire them at a younger age. Whether this is because there is more real wealth or because everyone is astronomically in debt I have no way of knowing. Even on gransnet I am often astonished at possessions and new purchases that people mention as if it were of no account. Is all that unreal?

But even aside from my own observations, there are statistics out there that bear out the impressions I get. Sorry to bang on about Max Roser's work but it's very uplifting and hope inducing stuff. Check him out.

I'd also question that there are 'many' people who think having massive credit card debts is nothing to worry about. Surely I can't know only people who don't think like that at all?

The wealth I'm talking about isn't just about money anyhow. There are improvements throughout the world, even in the poorest countries, on such things as infant and maternal mortality, children in school, life expectancy, and so on. These are real. I simply don't buy into the whole doom and gloom ideology that seems so prevalent nowadays.

thatbags

I'm no economist, so I expect to be corrected here But - how about the expense of the extended opening hours we now "enjoy". In addition to the financial expense of opening up, lighting, heating and staffing large stores, there's the social cost to families. What's wrong with keeping one day a bit special for family times.

The big retailers are already complaining about George O's budget, insisting the prices will have to rise to pay their staff a living wage. There's only so much "stuff" we can buy and I'm not convinced hat 24/7 opening is necessary or for the good of society.

Yours sincerely, Ms grump

What's wrong is that 'keeping' one day special is imposed by 'authorities' rather than being a choice individuals make.

I'm not sure greater shopping hours are for the good of society either, but neither am I sure it's for the bad. Time will tell. As will the economics of the thing. If it doesn't work for shops, they'll stop doing it, as has happened in the past. Where we lived in Oxfordshire, when a new Sainsbury's opened they introduced some all-night shopping nights. After a shortish time these were stopped because they didn't get enough night-time custom. A similar thing happened to another chain of smaller shops.

A good number of family shops run by people of Indian and Pakistani descent stay open long hours. I've never heard anyone objecting to that on the grounds of lost family leisure time.

People can't choose what days they have off with their families because children have to go to school Monday to Friday. That leaves Saturday - and retail staff often have to work on Saturdays - and Sundays - which is now under threat also. So it seems to me that the "choice" to which you refer thatbags is somewhat illusory.

The Indian newsagents at the bottom of my road is run, in "shifts", by the whole family and they have a sitting room, shower room/WC, kitchenette, and TV in the attached back room so their "jobs" are not completely separate from their home lives, as many people's are. The same applied with the previous Indian owners - who were friends of ours - whose teenage children also helped out.

I agree Eloethan - there is very little choice for the retail staff other than to resign. My son, who worked in retail - not a supermarket - never got home before midnight on Christmas Eve and had to get up to go into work at 3 am on Boxing Day to get the store ready for the sale that started on that day. He had to work 3 weekends out of 4, and very long days they were. It was a working pattern that was very detrimental to family life. This was not about the provision of an essential service.

Many small shops near us have closed as they cannot compete with the big supermarkets and those that do survive open all hours in an attempt to secure their livelihood.

I agree about the lack of choice for retail workers. Theirs was not the choice I meant. I meant the imposition of a day of rest such as still happens in some of the Western Isles of Scotland where people are prevented from doing things they might like to do, whose freedom of choice is thereby curtailed. There is mo way I'd want to go back to that kind of imposition elsewhere.

It is a problem that people who have to work on Saturdays and/or Sundays might not have family time, but that is already a problem for a good number of people even before any changes in shop opening times. I'm puzzled as to why it's allright for some places where people work to be open on Sundays so that the rest of us can go to them if we choose, but not others. I think what's puzzling me is that I see no significant distinction between, say, a garden centre or a restaurant being open on the one hand and a supermarket or other shop on the other. They are all essentially retail outlets, are they not?

Yes, I've never known what distinction there is. Our local Co-op is open all day on Sunday (well, at least until around 6 p.m.), but Asda and Tesco have to shut at 4 p.m.