When George Osborne announced the suspension of Sunday trading laws for the Olympics, the government assured the public and retailers that it was a temporary measure. Yet, as was inevitable, ministers, including Osborne and Eric Pickles, are now pushing for them to be permanently abandoned. Downing Street has insisted that they won’t be (describing the suspension as “a specific thing for the Olympics”), without quite ruling out the move altogether.
Cameron is right to tread carefully. It was over this issue that Margaret Thatcher suffered her first and only Commons defeat when 72 Conservative MPs voted against the complete repeal of the laws in 1986. The introduction of an equivalent bill today would likely spark a similar rebellion. Tory MP Mark Pritchard, for instance, has said:
I think all of us deserve rest and that includes shop workers.
As somebody who has worked in a shop on a Sunday, and not every Conservative MP has done that, I know that there is a lot of pressure on workers to turn up, there’s a question of whether people are overlooked for promotion.
The abandonment of Sunday trading laws would hurt small retailers the most and remove an important constraint on market rule. Unsurprisingly, then, the public are opposed to the measure by 52% to 36%. For obvious reasons, the abolition of Sunday trading laws would also antagonise churchgoing voters. Cameron’s decision to press ahead with plans to introduce gay marriage has already alienated conservative Christians and is currently the top reason for Tory members resigning from the party. The Daily Mail’s Andrew Pierce reported that thousands “ripped up their membership cards and refused to renew their subscriptions.” He added:
The alarm bells sounded in the Tory HQ, which in January launched a national appeal to try to persuade waverers to return to the fold. The appeal was a dismal failure.
ConservativeHome’s Paul Goodman has previously dubbed the coalition “the most anti-Christian Government in British history” Whether this is true or not (and the answer likely depends on which kind of Christian you are referring to), is less important than the fact that some Christians are now asking this question. Were Cameron making progress among those groups – black and ethnic-minority voters, public-sector workers, Scottish voters – that refused to support him in 2010, he could afford to risk alienating thousands of Conservative christians. But he is not. In today’s Mail, George Pitcher, Rowan Williams’s former public affairs secretary, writes of “Cameron’s contempt for religion in general and the Church of England in particular.” If this view gains currency on the right, the Prime Minister will be in trouble.
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