Located on the outskirts of town, adjacent to the A429 Coventry Road, a ‘highway’ pub that usually does a good trade in substantial meals serving a customer base who arrive by car. In normal times. But that is forbidden now because of the dreaded coronavirus, allegedly, though it looks more like a deliberate government plan to destroy this type of business establishment. To the left of that shown in the photo above, there is some police tape preventing entry to the car park, though this could have been requested by the pub owners themselves to stop other people using the parking spaces whilst the pub was forced to close.
Nearby is a lay-by where the Warwickshire Constabulary regularly have a speed trap to catch people out where the limit drops from 50 mph to 40 mph on the approach to town; whilst their HQ in the nearby village of Leek Wootton is only a five minute drive away, so this venue could plausibly have hosted their Christmas do. But not this year, obviously. It has been forced to close, like thousands of other pubs and restaurants throughout the country. The run up to Christmas would normally be the busiest and hence most profitable time of the year as friends and work colleagues come together, to share a meal and a drink or two. But that is now forbidden. The anti-social culture of working from home, that has become the ‘New Normal’ for the past nine months may in any case have reduced the Christmas do to nothing more than a Zoom teleconference.
When the Lockdown Tier system was subject to a vote in Parliament on 1st December, Matt Western, the Labour MP for Warwick & Leamington, abstained, to fit in with his a track record of being one of Keir Starmer’s many poodles who refuses to defy the party whip. Western risibly blames the Conservative leadership of Warwickshire County Council for it being classified with Coventry and Solihull, omitting that those county councillors do not sit in the House of Commons, he does. Again, referring to the pub above, it is only a fifteen minute drive from the Coventry South constituency, for which his Labour colleague Zarah Sultana has been the MP for the past year.
To give credit to her, she voted against restoring the Lockdown Tiers, because she understands how it has impacted businesses in her constituency, but she is not opposed to lockdowns in themselves and she still believes that we are in a ‘pandemic’. Her vote was primarily motivated by getting more money for her constituents whose businesses are suffering, rather than voting in principal to end all lockdowns. Similarly, Jeremy Wright, the Conservative MP for Kenilworth & Southam, part of whose constituency lies between the two above (hence contains the Warwickshire Police HQ), unusually voted against the government, because he feels that that Tier 3 is too harsh for his constituency, not because he opposes lockdowns per se.
None of the following is specifically levelled at the pub shown in the photo above, but sadly many ‘hospitality’ venues have failed to be just that, by insisting that anyone entering have a temperature gun pointed at their head, then requesting contact details, even before the government had mandated it via Test & Trace; then enforcement of the absurd guideline of mask wearing whilst standing up in the venue (because clearly the virus only operates when standing, not sitting). Additionally, some insist on orders being via a smartphone app, with some also refusing to take cash because of the ‘health risk’.
Some pubs even took ‘social distancing’ to the absurd level of not allowing customers within two metres of the bar, that itself had a perspex screen, like old bank branches used to do. There were even some independently-run establishments that followed this path. To a certain degree for insurance purposes, ‘hospitality’ venues may have had to show an effort to meet the coronavirus guidelines, to meet ‘health and safety’ criteria, but one can only wonder why the managers of some felt such a need to zealously enforce it.
In the case of mask wearing, discretion could have been applied to assume that any customer is exempt unless otherwise specified, as some sensibly-run independent retailers have done. A venue whose manager maintains a good relationship with the local constabulary, together with a modicum of common sense of behalf on the latter, should have been able to achieve this. Those constabularies that are under-resourced would be foolish to pursue it, though some local authorities may well have jobsworths that would happily do so; and force rate-paying business establishments to go bust.
So what is the future for these ‘hospitality’ establishments? In the case of The Saxon Mill, which has a garden that backs onto the River Avon, it could well end up as residential apartments. Conversions of pubs to residential accommodation have happened elsewhere and are just as likely in town centre or housing estate locations as in a semi-rural one as above. Alternatively, many could end up as convenience stores. About a mile and a half away from The Saxon Mill stood the Jolly Miller pub on Cape Road. Four years ago it became a Co-op, where of course alcohol is available for purchase.
All of which begs a question, why hasn’t the hospitality sector fought back against government lockdown legislation as the fitness industry has? There is no obvious equivalent health reason for pubs to remain open, but then there is no justifiable reason for pubs, restaurants or any part of the ‘hospitality’ sector to be closed – and that is the salient point – given that this sector only amounts to a few per cent of the COVID19 ‘cases’. But if we had a government that wanted to prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol, then all off-sales would be banned, rather they are the only form of sales that are permitted. The Anchor Inn in Leek Wootton, the only pub in the village, hence the local for those at the Warwickshire Police HQ, is one of the few in the area currently doing just this.
From a health perspective, most restaurants should have a better case to remain open than the junk food drive-thrus have, as the former should at least have healthier choices available on the menu. Also from the perspective of health and safety, it must be better that alcohol be consumed on licensed premises, such as a restaurant or pub than purchased from a convenience store and possibly consumed outside, leading to anti-social behaviour. So any assumption that the closure of licensed premises has reduced alcohol-related crime would be wrong. From the perspective of law and order, alcohol consumed on licensed premises is more preferable. So although no police service in the country has yet come out and said so, most officers must prefer responsibly run licensed premises to dealing with the consequences of an upturn in alcohol consumption elsewhere.
But then we get to the nub of what the lockdown measures are really for, the dehumanising policy of preventing social gatherings on the flimsy pretext of a virus that is harmless to the vast majority of the population; and whether or not the business premises concerned serve alcohol is beside the point. Anyway, have a good Christmas if possible, spending it with as many people as you wish. Neither the government nor any other agency of the state has the right to dictate to you otherwise.
As a footnote, I typed all the above prior to the announcement yesterday that London and other areas of South East England were to be moved into Lockdown Tier 4. This looks like the first step towards a full national Tier 4 Lockdown. The hospitality sector will not survive and those within it who colluded, zealously in some cases, enforcing the draconian legislation should come to rue having done so.
With the number of pubs having been in decline since long before the smoking ban, it is plausible that many were already struggling and furlough money has just kept them on artificial respiration when they otherwise wouldn’t have survived anyway, hence whilst forced to close (like this one near Warwick Racecourse), their ‘thanking’ the NHS which has also been closed to the vast majority of people.
Warwick Freedom 