The future of the UK’s charity shops seems in doubt as “more and more” close their doors. Oxfam is considering shutting 100 of its 500 stores, only months after the British Heart Foundation announced plans to close 150 of its 640 shops.

How do charity shops operate?
The UK’s charity shops are staffed by about 223,000 volunteers and 24,900 paid employees. Together, they made more than £300 million in 2024-25. Charity shops don’t have to pay business rates, although they’re “still hit by increases in national insurance and wage bills”, said The Guardian.

What’s happening now?
The rise of fast fashion means charities are inundated with low-quality clothing donations, said Tansy Hoskins, author of “Charity Shop World: An Investigation into Community, Consumption and Waste”, in The Telegraph. Charities sell them off to recycling companies in “ragbags”, but the average price paid to charities for a kilo of worn clothes has “dropped from 45p to 15p” over the past decade.

Charity shops are also competing with second-hand online retailers like Vinted and eBay. But that has an upside, too: resellers buying up charity-shop finds to sell online can be a source of “significant income”, said The Guardian.

What has the reaction been?
Some in the sector are more upbeat. Robin Osterley, outgoing chief executive of the Charity Retail Association, told Civil Society that charity shops are facing challenges “maintaining their profitability in the face of some really significant rising costs” but I don’t “have any concerns about the future of shops”. I also “think some of the trends we’ve been seeing towards higher standards, and towards larger shops in particular, will continue”.

I’m not sorry to see the sector shrink, said Simon Heptinstall in The Spectator. Charity shops’ exemption from business rates has given them a “ridiculous near monopoly” on high streets, supported by “an army” of “unpaid volunteers” and prices worthy of a “Bond Street boutique”. They are no longer a community asset but an “optimised extraction racket” by charities to prop up their own “sprawling corporate infrastructure”.

It’s usually the Republicans who claim the faith mantle in US politics but, in the run-up to this November’s midterm elections, Democratic candidates like James Talarico in Texas and Adam Hamilton in Kansas are busy highlighting their religious bona fides on the campaign trail.

Other Democrats on the ballot include a Lutheran minister and an evangelical pastor, while the campaign for Iowa governor candidate Rob Sand emphasises “how his faith is deeply woven into his public service”, said anti-Republican Christian activist Doug Pagitt on The Hill.

‘Faith-forward’ candidates
Democratic Socialists receive a lot of attention during the campaign cycle “but Democratic Christians may prove more influential this November”, said The New Yorker. Candidates like Talarico and Hamilton are leading a “resurgence of the once dominant and long-dormant mainline Protestant tradition” in Democratic politics. Their prominence can be seen as a response to the right-wing “hijacking of the Gospel message” and the evangelicals’ embrace of Donald Trump.

“Faith is back in Democratic politics,” said Religion News Service. Democrats have often chosen to “ignore, dismiss or even discredit religion” because they did not know how to talk about Christian values without sounding as though they were “imposing their religion upon a pluralistic society”. But a new generation of “faith-forward” candidates is “reclaiming religion” as a “moral framework for public service”.

Reaching out
Democratic efforts to “reclaim God” are “unlikely to succeed”, unless the party moves toward the centre, said The Washington Post. Today’s progressive Christians do not reach out to “socially conservative religious voters” but rather “use the language of faith to argue for positions generally associated with the secular left”. Barack Obama, for example, embraced religious rhetoric during his rise to the presidency but then went on to advance causes – abortion access, LGBT rights – that are “at odds with evangelical priorities”. 

But a “sense of belonging” is important in “both religion and politics”, said Pagitt. With Republicans “narrowing their definition of who belongs and which faith matters”, Democrats have an opportunity to “welcome those Trump is denying”.

A man in Kosovo Liberation Army uniform protests the imprisonment of Kosovo’s former president at a rally in Pristina. A tribunal at The Hague sentenced Hashim Thaçi to 25 years in prison for war crimes committed as a commander in Kosovo’s 1998-99 independence war against Serbia.

Armend Nimani / AFP / Getty Images

Isle of Wight: Vine Cottage, Old Town, Cowes
This attractive, period cottage enjoys glimpses of the sea from the upper floors. With easy access to the high street. 4 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 2 receps, garden. £545,000; Spence Willard.

Ceredigion: Brynymor House, Cardigan
A stunning Georgian house on the Teifi Estuary. Newly renovated, it boasts glorious views and direct access to the river. 8 beds, 2 baths, kitchen, 2 receps, outbuildings, garden, parking. OIEO £1.65 million; Country Living Group.

Shropshire: The Old School House, Bucknell
A delightful Grade II early 17th century timber-framed village house. Situated in a tranquil rural area, and set in mature gardens on the banks of the Redlake river. 4 beds, 2 baths, kitchen-breakfast room, 3 receps, garden, period barn, parking. £695,000; Knight Frank.

Wiltshire: Stoford House, Stoford
A fine Grade II Georgian house set in mature gardens in the Wylye Valley. Main suite, 3 further beds, shower, kitchen, 3 receps, study, outbuilding, garden, parking. £895,000; Myddelton & Major.

The British right’s patriotism problem
Janan Ganesh in the Financial Times
Reform’s message of “Life is crap, vote for us” is becoming “a drag”, writes Janan Ganesh, especially with a new prime minister who “seems at ease in his own country”. Voters may be “glum” about Britain “in the abstract”, but they’re “not about their own lives”. If Andy Burnham were “to run on patriotism” at the next election, he could “stigmatise Reform as the plaything of Trump-smitten exiles” and foreign “bitcoin bros whose first loyalty is to their purses”.

We don’t need more Austen adaptations. Or do we?
Beatrice Scudeler in The Spectator
We’re getting new film adaptations of “Sense and Sensibility” and “Pride and Prejudice”, writes Beatrice Scudeler. Are they needed? “Probably not.” But “will I still watch them” immediately? “Very likely.” As marriage rates plummet and more young people shrink from online dating, Jane Austen’s “aspirational” romances offer us “joy” and the “comfort of predictability”. Contemporary authors like Sally Rooney can show us “relationships as they are” but we still “need a Jane Austen to show us what they could be”.
 
Britain needed Bonnie Greer
Diane Abbott in The New Statesman
My friend Bonnie Greer, who has died at 77, “burst on the British cultural and arts scene like an explosion of fireworks”, writes MP Diane Abbott. In the 1980s, it was a “revelation” to see “a Black woman on national television” talking “with complete confidence”. Pundits at that time “were all white, nearly all Oxbridge and nearly all male”. When she moved into political commentary, she had the “clarity” and “incisiveness” to face the BNP leader on “Question Time”. “I admired her courage.”