The case against a cashless society

‘We don’t take cash,’ said the boy behind the counter in Pret after I tried to hand him a £5 note and two pound coins.

‘My’ ham and cheese baguette and bottle of Coke sat in a brown paper bag on the counter and a woman standing beside me grimaced as she waited to be served in the otherwise empty shop. I say ‘my’ in inverted commas because I have since looked into the legal rights concerned and what I might have said to handle this in an effective way. As it was, I got it wrong.

‘You have to take cash, it’s legal tender,’ I said. ‘I’m just following orders,’ he said.

I can’t believe people actually say that, but they do. I had a debit card in my bag, but I decided that if Pret was going to collude in this cashless tyranny we are being sucked into by stealth, then I don’t want to give them my money.