The customer is never right

Penny Mordaunt, who carried her sword with such panache at the coronation, has called for 2024 to become the year we ‘make the consumer the king again’. I like Mordaunt. You should see the way she demolishes her Labour and Scots Nats counterparts in the Commons. But with her call for customers to be treated as monarchs, she may face an unwinnable battle. Businesses regard customers not as kings but as potential muggers, racists and a thoroughly dodgy lot.

‘Le client n’a jamais tort,’ said the hotelier César Ritz (d.1918), and he made a fortune. The more common attitude among today’s business owners, particularly in London, is that le client n’a jamais right. Are they correct – or is their much-paraded suspicion worsening the atmosphere?

Here are some signs seen in shops and cafés. Exhibit one: ‘Zero tolerance. Shouting, being disrespectful or abusive towards staff will not be tolerated at any time.