Yahoo Finance Give pubs more cash to stave off last orders | Victory for sports fans | Protect the arts
Give pubs more cash to stave off last orders
From rural pubs nestled in the heart of a village to Soho’s status as the home of London’s LGBTQ scene, the great British pub is part of our way of life.
Yet even pre-pandemic, their number had been decreasing steadily for decades. Between 2000 to 2017, 20 per cent of pubs closed. That figure rises to 27 per cent in London.
The announcement of a one-off £1000 grant for ‘wet-led pubs’ - those that serve predominantly alcohol rather than food - across tiers 2 and 3 is better than nothing, but only just.
£1000 is a derisory figure, particularly in the context of the billions of pounds the Government has rightly spent during this pandemic.
The British Beer and Pub Association forecast that this December the average pub will lose £47,000 in revenue. In this context, £1000 is clearly insufficient.
Monthly grants to pubs must be increased to get them through the Christmas period, and Rishi Sunak must rethink his damaging tourism VAT grab.
Today’s news that the UK has become the first Western country to approve a Coronavirus vaccine shows a return to normality is not too far away.
But that return will not feel anything like normal if we discover that, by the summer of 2021, there are no pubs in which to celebrate our newfound freedoms.
Victory for sports fans
In a victory for our ‘Bring Back the Fans’ campaign, all eyes will be on The Valley tonight for Charlton Athletic's clash with MK Dons.
Things will still feel very different - the 2000 ticket holders, selected by ballot, will be unable to purchase food, drinks or programmes, while the club will operate the fixture as a loss.
However, the match is an opportunity to build up confidence - both of fans and the authorities - to demonstrate supporters can return safely to stadiums.
Tony Keohane, Charlton’s chief operating officer, put it best when he said: “This isn’t just about Charlton. This is every stadium, every venue, be it football, rugby or theatre. It's about building up the confidence that we have procedures and processes that can be trusted.”
Protect the arts
Now about those theatres - they have bent over backwards to make their spaces Covid-safe.
Therefore the announcement that venues in Tiers 1 and 2 will be restricted to 50 per cent capacity or 1000 people - whichever is lower - feels random and unfair. The Government must set out the scientific basis behind these restrictions.
Commons sense has at least prevailed in that theatregoers will not have the scoff down a scotch egg in order to enjoy a drink at the theatre. But progress on funding has been far too slow.
Legendary theatre producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh says that the entire commercial sector of British theatre has received less than 1 per cent of the much-vaunted £1.57 billion Cultural Recovery Fund.
The arts contribute nearly £11 billion a year to the UK economy. The Government needs to ensure as a matter of urgency that money from the fund is allocated so that our great cultural institutions - from opera to panto - can survive the winter.
