Some businesses definitely need to rethink how they deal with the period of national mourning

James Moore argues that customers should be given a choice about how they spend their time on Monday

Center Parcs angered customers when it said they would have to leave on Monday

Since when did the Queen’s funeral become the occasion for a fresh national lockdown?

While there has been no (official) instruction from the government, parts of the business community have nonetheless decided to impose one on their customers.

By far the worst example of this came courtesy of Center Parcs, the holiday village operator, which announced a plan to boot its customers out of its parks (or should that be parcs?) on Monday “as a mark of respect and to allow as many of our colleagues as possible to be part of this historic moment”.

I’m always slightly suspicious when companies start intimating that a deep love for their staff is behind a decision affecting their customers, which is what this amounted to. Some customers – in the middle of longer breaks – were faced with the choice of finding a hotel, preferably one not closed “as a mark of respect”, for a night or spending hours on the road going home before driving back. That is, if they still wanted to have anything to do with the place.

After a deluge of criticism, complaints, and considerable online mockery, the policy was reversed. Partially. People in the middle of their breaks will be able to stay on site, although the facilities will be closed. But those who booked holidays starting Monday will now have to wait until Tuesday to start their broken breaks. I suppose that makes it a case of them’s the breaks.

The company appears not to have considered that people may have booked train tickets, hired cars, or made other arrangements that can’t be easily changed at very short notice and may see them incurring financial penalties. Most of the supermarkets will also be closing or, at best, drastically reducing their hours, again as “as a mark of respect”. So will many other consumer-facing businesses.

All this talk of respect ignores how profoundly disrespectful these decisions are towards some customers, not all of whom will be monarchists. Shouldn’t it be their choice as to whether or not they wish to participate in the events or whether they prefer to get the jump on their weekly shop, see a movie or buy a burger? There may be still more serious complications. People with medical conditions often rely on supermarket pharmacies, something else which appears not to have been considered.

The claim that all this is to allow staff to participate in the event also bears closer scrutiny. Shouldn’t their choices should be respected? I have no doubt that at least some of them would choose to work if overtime rates were offered.

Official figures show that the inflation rate fell slightly in August, to 9.9 per cent. But the impact rising prices are having on people on lower wages – which applies to most of those in retail, hospitality and what have you – is still brutal.

A day’s work at time and a half, or even double as some employers offer, could be very welcome to those whose budgets are currently under severe strain.

It is possible to do this better. Center Parcs’ sometimes savage social media critics weren’t slow to pick up on the stance taken by Butlin’s, which emailed its customers to let them know their breaks were going ahead as planned.

The holiday operator said it was “reviewing our schedule including the airing of the funeral and we’ll email you with more information next week”.

It appears to be intent on finding a way to serve the interests of customers while ensuring they and Butlin’s staff can participate in the occasion if that is their choice. As one Twitter user put it, the firm managed to “keep calm and carry on” while providing a welcome sign that common sense hasn’t entirely become extinct on these shores.

Couldn’t those supermarkets, which boasted about how they “kept Britain fed” during the Covid-19 pandemic, follow that sensible lead and maybe close during the funeral hours before reopening to avoid leaving their customers fed up?

Fuller’s said its 400 pubs would remain open to “provide a place for people to come together and pay their respects”. Or to provide a place where people can get a beer with their friends if that’s what they prefer to do. Either is fine. Better still is the fact that the company is prepared to give its customers a choice.

Isn’t freedom to choose the point of living in a constitutional monarchy in the first place? Some very well-paid CEOs appear to have forgotten that. Perhaps they need a civics lesson.