Only shoppers can save a nation of shopkeepers | Letters
I fear that John Harris is partially buying into Reform UK’s rhetoric about the decline of the high street (The UK’s high streets have reached a tipping point – and Reform will reap the benefits, 11 January).The decline of small businesses in our high streets is largely the result of consumer choice.That’s why supermarkets exist.They sell goods more cheaply and have a range that would be equivalent to numerous shops.The majority of the population prefers to drive and do it all in one go, regardless of income.
And yes, while there are concerns about the number of “dodgy” shops acting as fronts for criminal activities, I find the proliferation of coffee bars and cafes a welcome development.Let’s not get nostalgic about the loss of pubs, which most people reject because of alternative entertainments, particularly the young.The Reform case is harking back to a world of happy shoppers and drinkers – which mainly meant drinking for men and shopping for women.Trevor HopperLewes, East Sussex I don’t think John Harris has fully grasped the impact of online buying habits on the viability of local shops.Every penny we spend online is a penny less spent in a shop.
If we want our local shops to survive, we need to use them much more.That is the only action that can save them in the long term – not government grants, tax concessions or capping the number of betting outlets.Councils can help by bringing more housing and public facilities into local centres; by opposing out of town hypermarkets; and through imaginative use of art and culture, of which Rochdale is a good example.But ultimately it is down to us and where we choose to spend our money.If we increasingly shop online, we have only ourselves to blame for the looming death of so many of our high streets.
John BoalerCalne, Wiltshire John Harris’s article makes depressing reading, but local groups can make a difference.Four years ago a shopping arcade in Melton Mowbray was almost derelict, with most of the shops empty; the local art group offered to put paintings in the windows to brighten the place up.Now nearly all the shops are taken, we have two art exhibitions there each year and the centre has benches and flower tubs and is bright and welcoming, with support from Melton Business Improvement District.It has made a huge difference without costing large amounts of money.Local initiatives can make a difference; it’s a great feeling to know you’ve helped and it encourages other groups to get involved, too.
Peter SmithMelton Mowbray, Leicestershire Take heart from Brixton in south London, John Harris.The noisy main street – the A23, Brixton Hill – is all betting shops, vape shops and takeaways, buses, vans and motorbikes.But in the streets around Electric Avenue there is a market – busy, bustling, friendly and traffic-free.There is street food, street art, coffee shops and established local businesses.Reform would close it down – pretty well everybody here is non-native.
Markets are surviving everywhere; some places have a market hall.Some, like Shrewsbury, are having a makeover.They are central, traffic-free, daily shopping venues as well as social spaces.Robin StottWarwick Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Jacinda Ardern pulls out of Adelaide writers’ week as fallout over Randa Abdel-Fattah’s axing continues
Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has become the latest international headline act to pull out of the 2026 Adelaide writers’ week in protest over the Adelaide festival board’s decision to rescind its invitation to Palestinian-Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah.Ardern had been scheduled to discuss her memoir A Different Kind of Power with the ABC’s host of 7.30, Sarah Ferguson, on 3 March.Ardern joins a growing list of international writers and commentators who have decided to boycott the event, along with more than 180 participants. Bestselling author Zadie Smith, Pulitzer prize-winning writer Percival Everett, Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis, Irish novelist Roisín O’Donnell and Russian American journalist M Gessen have all confirmed their withdrawal in recent days
‘It was inspired by a snog in a photo-booth’: how Thompson Twins made Hold Me Now
Thompson Twins were a seven-piece, rag-bag, guitar-based band living in a squat when I met Alannah Currie, who was also squatting in London. She was in an anarchic improv band, the Unfuckables, who were clearly not destined for Top of the Pops, but there was something very exciting about her. When I invited her to come on at the end of a Thompson Twins gig, she stole the show.We slimmed down to a three-piece with Alannah, Joe Leeway [keyboards, percussion, vocals] and myself. Suddenly we were a recognisable trio who could all fit in one car
Post your questions for R&B star Jill Scott
In the age of GLP-1s and the deep-plane facelift making dozens of famous women appear perpetually 32 years old, there’s something extra heartening about Pressha, the lead single from three-time Grammy-winner Jill Scott’s sixth album. “I wasn’t the aesthetic / I guess, I guess, I get it / So much pressure to appear just like them / Pretty and cosmetic,” she sings in a coolly unimpressed kiss-off to a former paramour too cowardly to be seen with her in public.It’s typical of the 53-year-old neo-soul superstar’s direct way with singing about femininity – a quality that’s made her an in-demand collaborator with artists including Dr Dre, Pusha T, Will Smith, Common and Kehlani. As well as having several US No 1 albums to her name, Scott is an artist’s artist: her new record features Tierra Whack, JID and Too $hort; she was originally discovered by Questlove back in her spoken-word days before releasing her platinum-certified debut Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol 1 in 2000.As well as music, Scott has maintained a vivid acting career, starring as James Brown’s wife, Deirdre or “Dee Dee”, in the 2014 biopic Get on Up and taking roles in HBO’s adaptation of Alastair McCall Smith’s The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and BET+’s TV adaptation of The First Wives’ Club
Mindy Meng Wang on the ‘disorienting’ experience of her father’s funeral – and the Chinese cyber-opera it inspired
The guzheng virtuoso remembers being shocked by the traditional ceremony in China’s north-west. Now she’s processing it on stageGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailWhen Mindy Meng Wang’s father died in 2015, the Melbourne-based musician found herself navigating grief while also organising his funeral in her home city in north-western China. It was to be an elaborate, three-day ceremony filled with prescribed rites, including burning paper effigies, ritualised crying and prayer chants.Looking back, Wang describes the experience as “completely shocking and disorienting”. “There were so many rules for what I had to do over those three days, and so many things that I could not understand,” she says
Hawaii: A Kingdom Crossing Oceans review – a feather-filled thriller full of gods, gourds and ghosts
British Museum, LondonThis retelling of Captain Cook’s death and the merging of two cultures is a trove of miraculously preserved wonders – but beware of the shark-toothed club!Relations between Britain and the Pacific kingdom of Hawaii didn’t get off to a great start. On 14 February 1779 the global explorer James Cook was clubbed and stabbed to death at Hawaii’s Kealakekua Bay in a dispute over a boat: it was a tragedy of cultural misunderstanding that still has anthropologists arguing over its meaning. Cook had previously visited Hawaii and apparently been identified as the god Lono, but didn’t know this. Marshall Sahlins argued that Cook was killed because by coming twice he transgressed the Lono myth, while another anthropologist, Gananath Obeyesekere, attacked him for imposing colonialist assumptions of “native” irrationality on the Hawaiians.It’s a fascinating, contentious debate
Three board members and board chair resign from Adelaide festival as Randa Abdel-Fattah sends legal notice
The Adelaide festival is facing an unprecedented leadership crisis after three board members resigned this weekend.The journalist Daniela Ritorto, the Adelaide businesswoman Donny Walford and the lawyer Nick Linke stepped down at an extraordinary board meeting on Saturday following the board’s controversial decision to dump the Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah from the 2026 writers’ week program.Separately on Sunday evening, festival board chair Tracey Whiting confirmed that she had decided to resign, “effective immediately”.She did not detail her reasons for resigning, saying only in a statement: “Recent decisions were bound by certain undertakings and my resignation enables the Adelaide Festival, as an organisation, to refresh its leadership and its approach to these circumstances.”“My tenure as Chair has been immensely enjoyable, as has working with the terrific AF team
It’s the governance of AI that matters, not its ‘personhood’ | Letters
Musk’s AI tool Grok will be integrated into Pentagon networks, Hegseth says
Can X be banned under UK law and what are the other options?
UK media regulator investigating Elon Musk’s X after outcry over sexualised AI images
Google parent Alphabet hits $4tn valuation after AI deal with Apple
Malaysia blocks Elon Musk’s Grok AI over fake, sexualised images