Not what I was looking for!

[Uncle Peter]

I was trying to find Buicks - the DIY store.

[Uncle Peter]

Fuck's sake!!! Why are these places all closed on a Sunday evening? That's the time when people do DIY! Not in the middle of the week when they're all at work!

[Nightjar]

Blame the shop workers' trade unions. Government would have permitted all day opening on Sundays (Easter Sunday excepted), had they not objected.

Colin Bignell

[mcp]

Thatcher was in power when the Sunday trading laws were passed, not known for respecting the wishes of trade unions.

[ARW]

Learn some manners.

Don't speak with you mouth full.

[Uncle Peter]

Learn some grammar! [spank]

[Nightjar]

Thatcher's only defeat in the House of Commons was the Shops Bill of

1986, which would have removed all regulation on Sunday trading. The main opposition came from Labour, at the behest of the trade unions, but they were supported by 72 Tory backbenchers, representing the Christian Right and the Bill failed by 14 votes. The Sunday Trading Act of 1994 was the 27th attempt to relax Sunday trading laws and that only got through after the Government reached agreement with the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers that Sunday working would be entirely voluntary.

Colin Bignell

[Uncle Peter]

I have never much liked unions. What's the difference between someone working all Sunday and all Wednesday? They obviously don't employ the same person 7 days a week.

[Tim Streater]

The Sunday Trading laws we have at present were passed under John Major, around 1994 or so.

[Tim Streater]

SWMBO tells me that Maggie tried to pass Shops Bill 1986 which would have ended govt regulation of Sunday shopping but it was defeated because 72 Tory MPs defied a 3-line whip. It marked her only Commons defeat, apparently.

[Fredxxx]

Not my experience in Scotland.

Where many places are open for more that the the English allotted 6 hours.

[Uncle Peter]

DIY stores seem to be different.

The English still have that religious bullshit?

[charles]

That is because Scotland, with a completely different legal system, never had any law prohibiting Sunday trading.

[mcp]

And none of that Easter Sunday nonsense.

[Uncle Peter]

Post Offices have a bank holiday almost every Monday. And banks just close because they feel like it.

[Nightjar]

Scotland didn't have any Sunday trading laws until 2003, when Sunday working was made voluntary.

Colin Bignell

[Uncle Peter]

I'm sure when I were a lad (30 years ago) that in Scotland it was illegal to trade on a Sunday afternoon.

[Capitol]

Not so, the retailers decided they didn't want to open shops for longer hours on Sundays a couple of years ago. The unions maybe agreed with them.

[Capitol]

Console yourself with the thought that Europe has even more religious public holidays than we do.

[Uncle Peter]

Tesco is open 24/7 here, yet last time I went at 3am, I think there were two customers in there, and one was me.