Some sectors have not had the luxury of changing how they work, however. One of those is retail, and supermarket workers had no choice but to keep going, even as we learned more about Covid-19 (long before Downing Street wheeled in its first suitcase of plonk and ignored the rules set in, er, Downing Street).

Remember the days when employees at grocery stores, big and small, were lauded as 'heroes'? Rightly so, in my opinion. Along with the medical profession, bus and train drivers, and many others we could name check, they kept the country going through some very difficult times. They had to contend with bog roll panic buying, and this year the fun continued with the great salad shortage of early 2023. Which of course had absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, by the way. Honest.

The news comes this week that Tesco staff have been offered body cameras, amid a huge spike in violent attacks on them. Their Chief Executive has rightly had enough, and spoke out as physical assaults rose by a third year-on-year. The British Retail Consortium's own research backed this bleak outlook earlier in 2023, as they found that abuse against retail staff had almost doubled when compared against pre-covid levels.

Tesco is not the first to announce this move, with Sainsburys, Waitrose and Co-op also taking similar action. Retail staff should be able to go to work without fear of being verbally or physically assaulted. It's that simple. I'm really sad that it's come to having to wear cameras, but if this measure proves to be a deterrent against would-be assailants, I guess it can only be a sage decision.

Tesco boss Ken Murphy, writing in the Mail on Sunday, has called on the Government to take more action against offenders, and demanded that "abuse or violence towards retail workers" be made a specific offence in itself. This seems eminently sensible to me, and I'm a little surprised it isn't already the case.

Scotland, which of course operates a separate legal system, already has in place the Protection Of Workers Bill, which makes it an offence to assault, abuse or threaten retail staff.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Policing Minister Chris Philp said police forces should be required to look at every crime where CCTV footage exists, even when the value of goods stolen is relatively low. He said: "It should not be tolerated at any level. I expect a zero tolerance approach to this criminality".

Incidents reported by retail staff have included racial and sexual abuse, and the Co-op warned back in July that some communities could become "no-go" areas for the company, due to the soaring levels of crime. A Freedom of Information request suggested over seven in ten reports of retail crime didn't receive a police response. I totally understand that resources have to come from somewhere, but it has to be made more of a priority to send a message that this isn't acceptable.

Where has the community spirit gone from the pandemic? Food shopping has admittedly got eye-wateringly expensive, but this isn't something to lay blame on retail staff for. They have never stopped going to work, often for pretty modest pay, and kept the country going through some very tough times. We owe them our respect and tolerance. I'm including small independent stores in this, of course. They were the lifeline for many during those strange times of one walk a day.

I'd like to live in a country where body-worn cameras are not required, to be honest, but if they send the right message that miscreants won't just be allowed to laugh at the law, then they are probably a step in the right direction. I won't pretend it doesn't feel pretty bleak, though.