The Economist - UK (2022-05-28)

The Economist May 28th 2022 Britain 25

Departmentstores

Retailer therapy

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ca’s Super Bowl commercials, but if you

had  to  pick  one,  it  would  probably  be  the

John  Lewis  Christmas  advert.  Each  year,

over  the  course  of  a  two­  or  three­minute

video, a monster, a dragon or a man on the

moon is taught the meaning of Christmas,

usually  by  small  children  or  animals.  The

nation  either  weeps  or  carps  that  the

wrong  song  was  used  for  the  soundtrack.

And  the  John  Lewis  Partnership—which

runs John Lewis, a department­store chain

that sells everything from board games to

bathroom fittings, and Waitrose, a posh su­

permarket—is  reaffirmed  as  having  a  spe­

cial  place  in  middle­class  Britain’s  collec­

tive consciousness.

John  Lewis’s  cuddly  version  of  capital­

ism,  conceived  in  1928  by  John  Spedan

Lewis  as  an  antidote  to  rising  communist

sentiment,  used  to  be  similarly  feted.  In

2012  it  was  touted  by  Sir  Nick  Clegg,  then

deputy prime minister, as a model for the

British  economy.  Employees  are  dubbed

“partners”, paid a share of profits as an an­

nual  bonus  and  given  generous  benefits;

they  elect  a  “partnership  council”  every

three  years  with  the  power  to  dismiss  the

chairman.  But  by  2020,  even  before  the

pandemic  shut  down  the  high  street,  cut­

throat online competition and years of de­

clining  profits  had  put  that  model  under

threat, says Clive Black of Shore Capital, an

investment firm. 

In February 2020 Dame Sharon White, a

former  boss  of  Ofcom,  the  communica­

tions  regulator,  took  the  reins  of  the  John

Lewis  Partnership.  Two  years  on,  a  turna­

round is under way: underlying profits are

climbing  once  again  (see  chart).  The  re­

vamped business holds a mirror up to Brit­

ain’s high streets: more online, more cost­

conscious and keen to diversify.

Most  painful  was  the  decision  perma­

nently  to  shut  a  third  of  John  Lewis’s  50

physical  stores,  from  Ashford  and  Aber­

deen  to  Tamworth  and  Tunbridge  Wells.

That reduced costs, and has been vindicat­

ed  by  Brits’  increasing  fondness  for  shop­

ping  online.  Despite  the  closures  and

weeks  of  covid­induced  lockdowns,  the

chain  posted  record  sales  of  £4.9bn

($6.1bn)  in  2021.  The  partnership  plans  to

spend £1bn over five years, much of which

will  go  towards  improving  its  digital  ser­

vices and delivery capabilities. Meanwhile,

notes Mr Black, the physical stores that re­

main give John Lewis an edge over online­

only  rivals,  like  Asos  and  Boohoo,  by  re­

ducing shipping costs (customers can col­

lect  their  internet  purchases  in  person)

and by making returns easier.

At the same time, the partnership is at­

tempting  to  broaden  its  appeal  beyond  a

fairly specific subset of the middle class. A

Facebook  page  from  2014  entitled  “Over­

heard in Waitrose” contains the immortal

entry  “Darling,  do  we  need  Parmesan  for

both  houses?”.  The  supermarket’s  inclu­

sion of rosemary and sea salt focaccia in its

“essentials” range gave much the same im­

pression. Now the focaccia is out, and a re­

focused essentials range emphasises value

for money rather than status­signalling.

The launch of a parallel “Anyday” range

at John Lewis has similar goals. They seem

to be being met: last year, of the 2m people

who  bought  Anyday  products,  a  quarter

were  new  or  “reactivated”  customers.

Meanwhile,  the  share  of  younger  custom­

ers  is  ticking  up.  Kantar,  a  research  firm,

says that 40% of John Lewis’s sales were to

under­45s in the year to March 2022, com­

pared  with  37%  the  year  before.  This  was

achieved  while  ditching  the  chain’s  long­

held  promise  to  be  “never  knowingly  un­

dersold”  in  the  face  of  competition  from

online titans like Amazon. 

Perhaps  most  strikingly,  Dame  Sharon

concluded  that  “John  Lewis  cannot  stay

only  a  retailer  if  we’re  to  maintain  our­

selves  as  a  financially  independent  part­

nership.”  Instead,  it  is  branching  out  into

financial  services  and  the  build­to­rent

property  market.  The  partnership  already

offers  Britain’s  most­used  retail  credit

card;  now  it  intends  to  add  savings  ac­

counts and insurance to that. It has picked

20  sites,  three  of  which  it  already  owns,

that it wants to turn into “quality and sus­

tainable housing” to rent out. 

Risks  loom.  Most  obviously,  the  cost­

of­living squeeze is bound to affect a retail­

erthat epitomises discretionary spending.

Diversification  will  stretch  the  business

beyond itscoreexpertise. But John Lewis is

better  placed to navigate  these  dangers

than it was.n

John Lewis’s turnaround holds up a

mirror to the British high street

Tills ringing

John Lewis, underlying profit*, £m

Source:Companyreports

*Before partnership bonus,

tax and exceptionals

400

300

200

100

0

2221201918172016

Years ending January

Theschoolcurriculum

Past tense

P

oliticians rarely need  encourage­

ment to tinker with the school curricu­

lum. Over the past two years pressure to do

just  that  has  intensified.  In  2020  cam­

paigners energised by the Black Lives Mat­

ter  movement  called  for  the  teaching  of

slavery  and  colonialism  to  be  made  com­

pulsory  in  England’s  classrooms.  A  year

later a government report said that schools

should teach more about the achievements

of Britain’s minorities. 

The  government  has  begun  promoting

a  plan  to  improve  history  lessons  for  all

children aged 5­14. A panel of experts will

cook up a new “model curriculum” for his­

tory  in  England,  to  be  published  in  2024.

This  document  will  not  alter  the  national

curriculum; instead the idea is to illustrate,

in  unusual  detail,  how  a  high­performing

history department might set about meet­

ing  its  requirements.  In  February  Robin

Walker,  the  schools  minister,  told  the

Times that  this  non­binding  document

would  underline  the  breadth  of  material,

from  migration  to  world  history,  that  can

be taught under existing rules. He also of­

fered  that  helping  youngsters  better  un­

derstand  the  past  would  make  them  less

likely to tear down statues.

The idea of using model curriculums to

influence  what  happens  in  schools  is  a

newish fad. The government’s first such ef­

fort—a  model  curriculum  for  England’s

music  teachers—was  published  last  year.

Its 100­odd pages include lists of pop songs

and  classical  music  that  the  government

thinks children should hear (what the na­

tional curriculum requires of music teach­

ers,  by  contrast,  can  be  scribbled  on  only

four  sheets).  The  government  seems  to

think that, though some schools are doing

a good job of converting the national curri­

culum’s  broad  rules  into  zingy  lessons,

others need a lot more hand­holding.

Enthusiasm  for  model  curriculums  al­

so  reflects  the  fact  that  tweaking  the  na­

tional curriculum is no longer very appeal­

ing.  The  government  needs  Parliament’s

approval  to  change  that.  And  academies,

which do not have to follow it, now make

up nearly half of England’s schools. In the­

ory model curriculums are also ignorable,

but in practice they demand attention. In­

spectors  in  England  check  to  see  whether

teachers  are  using  high­quality  curricu­

lums; where a detailed government model

exists,  schools  may  reasonably  conclude

that sticking to that is less risky than creat­

Fresh advice for history teachers will

not cool England’s culture wars