Claire’s Accessories goes under - blaming Rachel Reeves for the 1,300 jobs lost

Not suprised its gone bust, it was a matter of time. It’s always been overpriced tat and they never got with the times they failed to change with the times.

18yo DD has barely bought a thing from Claires, "overpriced tacky crap" were her words when she heard the news yesterday.

Thats the reason it's gone bust, not the NI hikes.

It still went bust. Next bought it for a song.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/apr/27/claires-to-close-remaining-uk-stores-on-tuesday-more-than-1000-job-losses

Curse of Private Equity.

Claire’s to close remaining UK stores, 1,000+ job losses.

Unsecured creditors to lose £10.6m.

Same PE owner to close 100 TG Jones (WH Smith) shops, plans to use insolvency procedure to avoid paying creditors.

The same firm gutted The Original Factory Shop and Hobbycraft.

VAT hasn't gone up?

Re op states the owner’s opinion and it cites the hike in NI. From BBC

‘It also blamed the climate on the High Street, which it said "remains extremely challenging", adding that government policy had caused a tough trading environment by raising staffing costs such as National Insurance Contributions.’

I mean it's interesting that you made an appeal to emotion rather than trying to argue that anyone who actually believes the Claire's bosses explanation is correct. So I wonder whether you actually think and are willing to defend the claim that was the reason, rather than the multiple others that they haven't mentioned.

UK borrowing was at the lowest for 3 years at the end of March. Then Trump started his war.

The irony is that VAT went up to pay for more welfare, jobs were lost so more are on welfare. The economic illiteracy of Labour, but some still buy it.
National Debt rocketed due to Covid bailouts, we needed financial restraint for a decade not profligacy.

It was one of those swept up by Next, most of the shops like that are because they can sell them on their very large, profitable online platform without having to bother with stores so less jobs that way as well and more profit for Next

That’s Dan Hodges in the Daily Heil. You may as well cite The Beano 😂

yeh no thanks

There wasn’t this frothing over Russell and Bromley going bust, probably because they said it had been on the cards since 2019.

I haven't seen anyone "defending the government over CA". What a strange thig to say.

Even OP and CA acknowledge that the NI hike wasn't the sole cause of the collapse. That is what is being discussed.

The NI hike has been a fucking disaster in social care. Poorly thought out.

Not sure what you mean here. As said it’s obvious a harsh business environment hits more at risk companies first, whatever the reason for that is.

Then you can see the fallout on other threads with dc stuck at home, even if people can’t connect the issues on this one.

It also tends to snowball so if people feel immune and CA is a nothing and good riddance it could always be them up next. And that’s not only for jobs but any money received.

Perhaps, but interesting that you don't attempt to argue that these people would be objectively correct about the importance of this one particular factor as against the many, many others.

My dd loved it in there. But unless they had a sale on, earnings etc and the like are cheaper in Primark. Much much cheaper.

I never grasped the offers either. Couldn't work out how much the totals would be. So a clearer lower price on everything rather than complicated offers might have helped.

I doubt people will feel the same if it’s their job or payment under threat.

It is.

I don't even support the NI increase policy either, in fact I dislike NI as a concept. But one wonders if some people might be quite so willing to swallow this explanation if it didn't happen to blame someone they already dislike.

Definitely Rachel Reeves and not the $2 billion dollars of debt the company is carrying. Definitely not that.

Well said. Plus this stuff has a habit of getting closer to home with jobs and payments going down as much as the gov is defended over CA.

Agreed. I didn't say should.
But jumping up and down with delight because you don't happen to like what Claire's sells and using it as an opportunity to parade your superior ethics is just crass.
Have people completely lost the ability (or desire) to put themselves in someone else's shoes?
I hope no one who lost their job yesterday reads this awful thread. They may be worrying about keeping a roof over their head, but that's fine because Mnetters don't like 'plastic tat'.
Take a look at yourselves.

I’d like to know if the taxpayers will have to pick up the tab for owed wages, redundancy, notice and holiday pay. Sir Phillip Green being on his yacht when we the taxpayers had to pay his staff was insult to injury. Staff deserve their £s, no question - just fed up profits being private but liability public in situations like this via Redundancy Payments Service.

I found it bad in Dunelm for a while