Shops, shops, shops! I’ve been trying to find out how many Britain has. No one seems to know, least of all Whitehall officials, who tell me they “don’t keep such statistics” (which is odd, because they keep all sorts of prying statistics about private individuals). But whatever the figure, it must be thousands more than when Napoleon dismissed England as “a nation of shopkeepers”.

And still they come. You might have thought that the last thing London needs is more Gaps, Nexts and Body Shops. But the Mayor of London says you are wrong. Ken Livingstone has approved no fewer than 51 big new retail developments in five years. By 2020 the capital may well have acquired an extra 20 million sq ft of malls. Just to put that in perspective, Hyde Park is 15 million sq ft. One mega-mall opening this year in Shepherds Bush will add 1.6 million sq ft by itself. Meanwhile, the humble little retail amenity in my neck of north London – Brent Cross Shopping Centre – seems to devour ten more acres of Cricklewood each time I pass. Apparently there’s a plan to double its size before we all graduate to the great Starbucks in the sky.

But this isn’t a London-only thing. The British may no longer build ships – but boy, can we build shops! Across the land, vast retail schemes are underway. Wolverhampton, for instance, embarks this spring on a £300 million plan to add 85 new shops to its manifold attractions. And dwarfing everything is what’s going on Liverpool. Its council, once the staunchest of socialist bastions, has struck up an alliance with Britain’s richest property magnate, the Duke of Westminster, to rip 42 acres of streets and buildings out of the heart of the city and create (besides two years of traffic grid-lock) a £1 billion “shopping and leisure experience” expected to be the eighth wonder of the world. When it opens in May, its cheerleaders tell me, it will be the most exciting (and profitable) thing to hit Merseyside since Lennon met McCartney – though whether it touches people’s souls like Eleanor Rigby remains to be seen.

Why do town halls look so favourably on these architecturally identical shopping centres, full of stores that can be found in 500 other high streets across Britain? First, because developers make huge claims about boosting employment. The people behind Liverpool’s waggishly-named “Paradise Project”, for instance, are promising to create 4,400 new jobs: no small consideration in an area where (one way or t’other) the taxpayer supports hundreds of thousands. Secondly, because these privately policed and maintained malls are perceived to be painlessly reducing crime and grime in city centres. And thirdly, because councils think that what their electors want is ever-multiplying rows of smart new shops.

All three premises are wrong, or at least shortsighted. First, new malls don’t create new jobs. They suck the shoppers, profits and eventually the life out of old shops, creating a monopolistic environment in which, for jobs, they become the only show in town. Secondly, they don’t stop crime; they push it elsewhere. And thirdly, where’s the evidence that we punters want yet more soulless malls? Aren’t people increasingly shopping by internet? Aren’t they starting to realise that Wordsworth was right: that if we are constantly “getting and spending”, we “lay waste our powers”? Not to mention creating enough traffic jams to punch holes the size of Asia in the ozone layer.

There’s something else a bit fishy about this “giving punters what they want” argument. How is it, if that’s the case, that one hears more and more laments for the demise of specialist small shops within walking distance of one’s home? I’m talking about the distinctive, quirky establishments that seem to have no place at all in the shiny new malls, but which once brought character, charm and a fiercely independent individuality to every town.

And that’s where the paradox lies in this tale. For the truth is that, from my opening sentence onwards, I have been misleading you. Britain isn’t gaining shops. It’s losing them. Every time a new superstore opens, every time a mayor cuts the ribbon on a new mall, the death-knell sounds for a hundred little shops within a ten-mile radius. Britain had 450,000 small independent retailers in the 1950s. Fewer than 30,000 are left. And a House of Commons report suggests that the figure is dropping by 2,000 a year. I hope you like Topshop, Boots and Starbucks, because by 2020 there may not be anywhere else to buy a coat, a condom or a cuppa.

I would never presume to preach to colleagues and friends for whom shopping is more important than religion, art and politics put together – and maybe sex too, as they get older. I realise that, for them, shopping fulfils some deep psychological need of which I am only dimly aware. (But then, I’m only dimly aware of most psychological needs, which is possibly why a few aspects of my life haven’t gone according to plan.)

No, my cry is only for variety and character on the high street. We moan about the lack of community spirit in modern Britain. But if we feel no pride in our surroundings, community spirit is impossible. And if our high street has been cloned into an enervated, pedestrianised precinct that looks identical to every other town’s, how can we take pride? These days, your local clothes shop or chemist won’t even be able to change the colour of its front door without permission from head office in Frankfurt or Illinois.

At least in Napoleon’s day we were shop keepers. Now, whether buying or selling, we are tiny cogs on the great globalised wheel of commerce. One day, people will rise up and revolt against the bland, homogenised, depersonalised cubicles that our shops have become. But in the mean time, must the local authorities we elect to preserve what we value about our communities be quiteso spineless in the face of Big Business?

Small beer, but a necessary step

Talking of conspicuous consumption, isn’t today the start of Lent? And if you don’t know what that is, fret not: in 21st-century Britain you are certainly in the majority. It’s odd how history repeats itself with a twist. When Christianity was a thrusting new religion, it shamelessly usurped pagan rituals. Now, secular Britain has snatched back all the “fun” dates – Christmas, Hallowe'en, Mother’s Day – and repaganised them, while steering clear of more severe seasons such as Lent, the 40 days of fasting. But isn’t an annual period of self-denial exactly what our overfed, greedy and wasteful society needs?

I personally am giving up booze for Lent. I announce this not to win goody-goody points, but to give the breweries of Germany and the Czech Republic fair warning of an imminent dip in their British sales. And also to warn faithful readers that this column may become even more grumpy and perverse in the coming weeks. If that’s possible.

A deviant exposed

So the people who vet you for appointments, promotion, and even the membership of prestigious clubs, are now scouring your Facebook page for signs of deviant behaviour. That explains so much! Now I know why I’ve never been offered a £500,000-a-year part-time directorship of a City bank, or membership of the Garrick Club, or a trip to Davos to discuss global politics with people who have three brains. It’s because of that photo of me falling off my chair last Christmas (a freak accident; it could have happened to anyone). Or maybe the (perhaps slightly unflattering) snap of me shaking a hip at the parish social. Either way, I beg my offspring and their oh-so-amusing friends to stop plastering these intimate moments all over cyberspace. Taken out of context, they do make me look like a complete prat. I’m sure that isn’t the intention.

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