Inconsistencies in Government policy over lockdowns are often not as glaring as they first seem.
So, the idea that you could get subsidised junk food during Eat Out To Help Out while also being told to slim down may have seemed illogical, but not when you considered the economic boost it gave restaurants and their staff. You may not agree with the trade-off, but you can see there is one.
The same simply can’t be said of 10pm curfews.
Early closing is costing operators millions of pounds a day in lost trade, yet the health gains in return for the sacrifice simply don’t exist. We’d always suspected this, but last night came proof in a Sage document concluding the impact is merely “marginal”. Only outright closure works.
The compromise — not shutting pubs altogether — is pointless.
All pain, no gain.
Further inconsistency reigns for pubs and hospitality firms in the new three-tier plan.
Not just in the lack of logic where Liverpool is in Tier 3 when it has lower infection rates than other parts of the North, but in the failure to dovetail with Rishi Sunak’s financial support.
In Tier 3, where pubs are closed, they qualify for Sunak payments for staff wages. But in Tier 2, where they can open but guests can’t mix inside with other households, trade will fall around 60%, yet they get no state support.
Weirdly, Liverpool leisure businesses may actually be better off than their Tier 2 peers.
Such muddled thinking only means one thing. Without reform to subsidies, today’s 13.4% youth unemployment is only the start.
