Thursday 20 October 2016

Stirring things up at Spoons

The pub chain Wetherspoons has closed and sold off dozens of its outlets in the last few months, including the King's Hall in Cheadle Hulme and Milson Rhodes in Didsbury.

Apparently neither site was owned by the company, and the leases on them are likely to generate higher profits for more upmarket operations in what are two of the better-off suburbs in the Stockport and South Manchester area.

Wetherspoons' owner Tim Martin was a vocal advocate of Leave in June's EU referendum. I blogged here about how he probably didn't think a Leave vote would affect his business much given that it isn't as reliant as others on migrant labour and exports, but the subsequent fall in the pound has pushed up the price of imported goods, including some of the food and drink his pubs sell. Brexit might just turn out to be a bigger blow to pubs than the Beer Duty Escalator and smoking ban combined.

Just as in the Scottish independence referendum it seemed some ultra-nationalists would be happy to live in a tent if it meant freedom from the alleged manacles of English rule, so too it appears that the "hard Brexiteers" who now hold sway in government see crashing the economy as a price worth paying for separation from the European Union.

I suppose ideally there would be a system of differential pricing, with only those who voted Leave paying more for things to offset the economic consequences of their choice.





4 comments:

  1. "... it appears that the 'hard Brexiteers' who now hold sway in government see crashing the economy as a price worth paying for separation from the European Union."

    As they are all personally very rich, they they can afford a drop in the value of their millions - they'll still be rich. As for the rest of us: we can go hang as far as they're concerned. Their mistreatment of the NHS and education proves they couldn't care less about ordinary people - as long as too many of us don't don't end up dossing in Whitehall.

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  2. Wouldn't have expect to see you lining up on the same side as rich bankers, Nev :p

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  3. You're expectation is 100% correct.

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  4. Typo - that should be 'your'. I rewrote the sentence but failed to amend that word.

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