Shopping basket thefts: The unexpected consequence of the plastic bag charge

The point is to remind to you bring your own: it's not a stealth tax on the poor

The supermarket charge for plastic bags came into effect at the beginning of the week (PA)

It’s at times like these one wishes Mr Pooter were alive. Since Monday, it has been illegal for large supermarkets to give plastic bags away for free. You now have to pay five whole pence for each one. It seems a small levy to pay, given that we know there is a floating iceberg of plastic the size of Paris bobbing about the North Atlantic. The point is to remind you to bring your own: it’s not a stealth tax on the poor.

And yet, there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth at every Tesco across England. What we didn’t foresee was that it would trigger a wave of shopping basket thefts. Apparently, supermarkets have noticed customers marching defiantly out with their shopping in the handy wire panniers, since they are still theoretically free. I blame Ken Bruce. The Radio 2 DJ was much amused on his Monday morning show when a listener boasted he had come up with this ruse. Now look at all these copycat crimes. I certainly wouldn’t have had the imagination to come up with it. All of which is causing much mirth in Wales – plastic bags have been chargeable there since 2011. How backwards we English must seem.

A Tory with the SNP’s ear

Front-runners in the jostle to succeed David Cameron as Tory leader typically include Boris Johnson and George Osborne. But surely Jacob Rees-Mogg is a more obvious choice. The nanny-loving Member for North Somerset started his political career as something of an embarrassment to the party, embodying the more cringey aspects of young fogeyism, such as pinstripe suits and Brian Sewell diction. Over the years, he has managed to charm the unlikeliest of detractors. The waspish Daily Mail diarist Peter McKay is a fan, oft-repeating the rumour that Rees-Mogg wears double-breasted pyjamas in bed. Now Mhairi Black, the 21-year-old hardcore SNP member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, has come out pro-Mogg. “I could sit and listen to him all day,” she tells a newspaper. “I disagree with him 99.9 per cent of the time, and that wee per cent is just because he’s got good manners. But I love listening to him. His knowledge is incredible and he’s so polite.” A Tory that the SNP listens to? That could be worth more to the party than anything come the next election.

Formula for being spooked

Mexico is having a bit of a moment. You can’t move at fashionable parties for people just back from honeymoon in Tulum, or telling you to try the cornbread with goat’s curd at Wahaca. Now the Pope has announced a visit for 2016, and Formula One is returning to Mexico City on 1 November, the first time there has been a Mexican Grand Prix since 1992, when Nigel Mansell won. The timing of the race is perhaps unfortunate, right in the middle of the Day of the Dead festival, which runs from 31 October to 2 November. It’s a big deal in Mexico, a time for celebrating the memories of departed loved ones, with banquets given at grave-sides. The thing is, motor-racing is still recovering from the shock death of Jules Bianchi in July, the first fatality in F1 since Ayrton Senna in 1994. Surely Bernie Ecclestone should have thought this through before taking the whole circus there in the middle of a spook-fest. After all, it’s what he’s paid the big bucks for.

Ship of fools

The mayor of Venice has announced plans to sell off a batch of paintings to help to prop up the city’s finances, and the city itself, which sits on sinking stilts. Before anyone gets too frothed up at the mouth, don’t worry. They’re not flogging the Bellinis. Works by Klimt and Chagall – which have little connection to Venice – are to be auctioned. But isn’t there a much easier way to raise some cash? By imposing huge charges on the cruise ships that pass daily down the Giudecca. One of the most shocking YouTube clips I watched last week was of a webcam fixed on the city from across the water. You admire the gracious campaniles, the dome of Santa Maria della Salute and the imposing palazzos. Then slowly, a vast white liner 50 times the size of the Doge’s Palace glides past, with all the obscenity of a phallus. It’s worth watching – type in “Batongo cruise”. A ban was imposed on these ships after the Costa Concordia disaster, but in typical Italian fashion, wrangling over alternative routes has caused it to be dropped. So Costa ships are free to chug up and down as they please. It seems strange that people worry about the sinking stilts when, with a flick of the wrist of a Captain Schettino, the whole place could be flattened in minutes.

Catharsis on paper

Actress Jane Seymour says in an interview with the Western Daily Press that she fell asleep while filming the sex scenes with Roger Moore in Live And Let Die in 1973. Apparently it was because the lights took so long to set up, but even so, that’s a low blow to Roger. Still, Ms Seymour is not like others. She claims that as therapy, she writes letters which she never sends and eventually destroys, “all of which helps get rid of whatever bile there is within me”. Surely the only satisfying bit of letter-writing is the sending of them. It means you have found a stamp and an envelope got to the postbox in time. Writing the damn things is the easy bit.