the struggles in hospitality

  If you want proof that Britain is run by people who have never had to meet a payroll, look no further than the state of our hospitality sector. Pubs, restaurants, cafés and hotels are being crushed, not by lack of effort, but by political failure.

Hospitality is about graft. Long hours, slim margins, early mornings, late nights. Yet Westminster has chosen to punish this sector. Food and energy bills are eye-watering. Business rates are absurd. Employer National Insurance is rising. VAT stubbornly sits at 20 per cent. Regulation pours out of Whitehall like cheap prosecco. And the Conservatives, the so-called party of business, have proven themselves laughable, talking big while running our high streets into the ground.

But it’s not just the government that’s failing hospitality. There is the Woke Milk Latte Brigade and the table-hogging, work-from-home lot who treat cafés like their personal office, sitting for hours on one coffee while real trade dries up. Pro tip: adding £5 to woke milk lattes is a proven cure for lactose intolerance. These cultural nuisances pile on top of real economic pressures, turning long days into losses and frustration. Now, more than ever, one is inclined to recite Peggy Mitchell: “Get out of my pub!”

Staffing is another disaster. Brexit itself didn’t kill kitchens and bars, but our politicians have managed it appallingly. They blocked the workers we actually needed and let in everyone who wasn’t going to contribute, while Whitehall drowned businesses in useless forms and red tape. The Conservatives lost control of borders and starved key sectors of workers, and Labour are now really rubbing salt in the wound with employer National Insurance and minimum wage rises.

Worst of all is attitude. Hospitality is treated as a hobby rather than a serious industry. Ministers love photo-ops in pubs, but fight for them? Rarely. Small independents absorb cost after cost while big corporations glide through exemptions.

Hospitality doesn’t need sympathy. It needs common sense. The Conservatives, and now Labour, have had their chance and blown it. If Britain wants lively high streets, strong communities, and pubs that actually serve the people who built them, it is time for straight talking, radical reform, and a clean break from a political class and culture that has forgotten who keeps the country running.

If you cannot fix the politics, at least do not ruin our pubs! Next time you’re in a pub, raise a glass to the survivors before the next budget turns it into a yoga studio.

MATTHEW BEATTIE