There is something wonderfully modern about having strong principles—as long as they don’t interfere with the shopping.

We denounce war crimes over breakfast, share an outraged post before lunch, and then cheerfully tap our phones to order the latest gadget from a company whose supply chain, investments or technology may have connections to Israel’s defence industry. Morality, it seems, is best practised in the abstract. Ideally, somewhere between the coffee machine and the checkout.

We boycott this, condemn that and solemnly announce that we are “standing with” someone thousands of miles away. Then we open the app.

Our phones, laptops, cloud services, payment systems and online subscriptions are not delivered by angels. Modern technology is an intricate web of multinational companies, contractors, investors and governments. Some have documented commercial or technological relationships with Israeli institutions or defence companies; others are accused online of connections that are considerably less clear. The consumer, meanwhile, is expected to conduct a geopolitical audit before ordering a pair of trainers.

Naturally, we don’t.

Because convenience is the most successful ideology of the twenty-first century.

We want ethical capitalism, provided it has one-click purchasing. We want clean supply chains, provided they don’t delay delivery. We want corporations to have consciences, provided those consciences don’t raise prices.

And there is the delicious contradiction: the same person who spends twenty minutes explaining why a particular corporation should be boycotted may spend forty minutes trying to find the cheapest alternative on another multinational platform.

None of this makes the suffering in Gaza less real, nor does hypocrisy invalidate legitimate protest. Quite the opposite. It exposes how difficult meaningful consumer choices have become in a global economy where almost everything is connected to everything else.

Perhaps the uncomfortable truth is that boycotting is easiest when it costs us nothing.

The real test begins when doing the right thing becomes inconvenient.

And suddenly, remarkably, the shopping basket develops a conscience.