Supermarkets join the nanny state

Thursday July 7, 2011

The government has persuaded Sainsbury’s to help identify informal ‘carers’ as potential ‘partners of the state’. Patrick Hayes argues against this latest attempt to nationalise family life.

Over the past few years I’ve developed an increasing dread of supermarket check-outs. Not only are you faced with rows of public health propaganda, but the old light-hearted banter with the checkout person has warped into an unpleasantly formal exchange.

The poor souls at the check-out have been forced to go through an ever expanding mechanical tick list of things to ask you about. Not only do they scrutinise your age when buying alcohol even if you easily look over 30, and check you’ve only bought small quantities of painkillers. But even when it’s blatantly obvious you have nowhere to put all your purchases, you are forced to almost beg for a carrier bag. And made to feel extremely guilty about doing so.

Now things are getting even worse. Sainsbury’s has announced that it’s going to be working with the Department of Health and a number of charities to get check-out people to check up on you. The scheme is apparently to ‘help identify and support the nation’s hidden carers’, those people who would qualify for state support but, ‘despite having a caring responsibility do not recognise themselves as carers’.

To some it may sound like a pretty harmless exercise with little to get worked up about. The check-out person will be trained to be on the look out for people who are purchasing groceries separately for others, something that has been identified as a ‘common practice’ among carers. They would then be asked whether they had ‘caring responsibilities’ and then pointed towards representatives of a charity, often lurking in the store, who would be able to offer them advice. And in-store pharmacists would be trained to do the same thing should people be collecting prescription medicine for someone other than themselves.

This initiative has been celebrated by Paul Burstow, minister of state for care services, who emphasises that: “We know that many people with caring responsibilities do not identify with being a carer – they see themselves first and foremost as a mother, father, son or daughter. This means they can miss out on accessing vital information, advice and support.”

This attempt to get people to identify themselves as ‘carers’ is, as parenting author Jennie Bristow has pointed out (see: spiked), the latest in a long line of desperate attempts by the government, started by New Labour but continued by the Lib Cons, to engage families by recruiting them as ‘partners of the state’.

The upshot of this, Bristow argues, is ‘that the informal relations of family life become gradually organised and formalised. Parents are discouraged from following their instincts and relying on their friends and family for support, and are oriented instead towards officially sanctioned child-rearing methods and sources of advice.’

By becoming ‘partners of the state’ in such a way, a sense of discomfort develops and family members or friends are left feeling that without ‘expert’ advice, they are almost abusing their loved ones and not giving them the high-levels of care they would receive if their hands were held by the state and assorted charitable bodies.

The supermarket, one of the few places where everyone now needs to go to regularly, is an ideal place for the tentacles of the state to reach out and sign up new ‘partners’. Sainsbury’s new initiative transforms supermarket check-out assistants into government agents, playing a role in undermining the informal relations of families and friends and corroding their autonomy.

It’s hardly a stretch to see the duties of these newly recruited agents expanding considerably. Will they next be encouraging you to get help and seek official advice if you buy too many fatty foods, or too few greens? If your clothes look a bit shabby? If you get too much junk food for your kids? If you have a bottle of wine too many in the trolley? If your electrical appliances aren’t environmentally friendly?

While I loathe them, the thought of being vetted every time I buy groceries is enough to send me to the self-service automated check-outs (but even these often now require a member of staff to green-light certain purchases). Or, where possible, to take my business elsewhere to a supermarket that doesn’t make intrusive attempts to pry into people’s private lives in order to offer state-sanctioned ‘help and support’.

Patrick Hayes works at the Institute of Ideasand is a reporter for the online magazine spiked. Visit his personal website here.