A nation of hagglers?

One thing that really tickles me about this so called "crisis" is that it seems to finally have brought society to its collective sense of anger about how much we pay for things. We have been living in rip off Britain for years and it hasn't bothered us a huge deal. I mean, there is a collective Tsk and roll of the eyes occasionally but nothing too bad. We don't blockage a port or two for kicks like those crazy continentals.

Take this debacle of the MPs Expenses. 3/4 years ago no one would have given much of a damn about whether or not the Home Secretary's husband claimed porn on the nations purse. Men would have sympathised with the husband for getting caught, and women would have sympathised with the home secretary for having a louse of a spouse. Again, the audible Tsk and mandatory eye roll may have cued a flurry of internal spin emails in number 10 but it wouldn't really have got us that animated. Natural order of snout and trough would have resumed.

Nowadays however - good grief! The baying mobs are pinning up fake blue plagues outside the home secretary's "second home" and are practically burning effigies. The NoTW is sending pin up girls with baskets of porn, the Daily Mail is all a flutter, the Government is facing show downs in the Commons. The public is actually bothered - hence the prompting of the changes in legislation today. It is a massive turn around.

Now men of the country are thinking, "If I have to pay for it...then so does the Home Secretary's husband" While women of the country are thinking "£10 for an additional feature?...that's a meal deal at M & S".

Likewise, I think THIS article on The Times website marks somewhat of a watershed. The article itself is fairly spare but the findings reported (Only 12% of people in the UK to scared to ask for a discount) are interesting. A nation, shy on making a fuss, habitually paying over the odds as they don't want to draw attention to themselves has started haggling. The giant has awakened!

Marvelous. This could be a new spectator sport. Forget Blood Sports, get a determined blue rinse in a Waitrose queue with a jobsworth and see who wins. I think I may take myself to Waitrose on Finchley Road to watch the old dears, haggle for their supper, getting increasingly annoyed the price hasn't come down as it nears The Archers starting time.

Its unlikely isn't it.

They'll pay the asked for price, Tsk and move quietly away. 12% or not, I personally think the vim to haggle has been exaggerated.

I think what is more likely is that we shop with our feet. Politely just don't go back. If it isn't cheap enough, we'll find it elsewhere for less. We will take a money off voucher, switch supermarket or electricity supplier but haggle? It simply isn't cricket.