Full transcript: Greg Mulholland on London Real
2:08 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Greg Mulholland, the former Member of Parliament for Leeds Northwest and current Chair of the British Pub Confederation. In June of this year, you created the Campaign for Pubs to offer grassroots support for those pubs and publicans who are now facing closure due to government’s lockdowns, curfews, and restrictions. You have consistently rallied Parliament for both the national time-out rent-free period and the No Pub, No Rent campaign, while highlighting the unique heritage and history that pubs bring to the fabric of our communities.
2:51 The recent restrictive lockdown measures have meant that many pubs remain closed, and you are concerned that the three-tier system for local lockdowns will hurt the sector even further. Greg, welcome to London Real. Thank you, Brian. Thank you very much. Yes, it’s a crisis for the pubs, for the Great British Pub, for the Great London Pub, and we’re doing everything we can as the Campaign for Pubs and the British Pub Confederation to try to save these institutions because they are so important to our communities, our cities, and the whole nation.
3:24 They’re so important, and the hospitality sector in itself is so much bigger than I think a lot of people realize. I mean, 120 billion pounds to the economy employs four and a half million people, nearly 15% of the workforce. And yet, by Public Health England’s own data, it’s only responsible for 3.3% of the COVID transmissions. And I know this is frustrating pub owners across the country who already experienced a 60% drop in revenues because of the 10pm curfew, and now they’re being told about more of these lockdowns with the three-tier system.
3:56 And with only a 66% furlough with a job retention scheme, it means tons of jobs being lost, pubs being closed down. We just got told today in London that Tier 2 is happening here, which is going to basically mean the pubs are shut down for all intents and purposes for the 9 million inhabitants here. It’s frustrating for me because the mayor seems to be almost lobbying for a lockdown when everyone here in London is trying to find a way to keep our economy alive, which keeps basically the rest of us alive.
4:27 What is your take on this tier system and the fact that our government seems to be ignoring the Public Health England data when it comes to some of the institutions that are almost the cleanest out there when it comes to doing business? Yeah, I think I’d agree with the sentiment you’ve expressed. What we don’t have is a holistic approach to this. Now, COVID-19 is clearly a very serious issue. It’s a pandemic.
4:56 It’s the first in our lifetime, thankfully, and let’s hope it’s the last. And it’s, of course, right that all of us, individuals, businesses and state institutions, do everything that we possibly can to minimize the spread and do what we can to control this. But at the same time, there seems to be a real lack of thought and planning, perhaps even understanding of the impact. And we’re not just talking about the economic impact. I think people often say, oh, you know, the lives should come before the economy in inverted commas.
5:33 We’re talking about lives. We’re talking about people’s lives as well as livelihoods being ruined. We’re talking about, in this case, with pubs. I know many publicans who are desperate. We are facing a mental health crisis amongst Britain’s publicans because they’re not getting the support.
5:51 They are being scapegoated. They feel they’re being scapegoated by many politicians and an easy target for scientists. It’s been shown that something like the curfew, the government’s own adviser, Sage, said it would have a minimal impact, a minimal impact in terms of controlling COVID, but a disastrous impact for pubs and restaurants, clubs and bars that rely on that later trade. It’s making some of those very vibrant businesses actually unviable. And people are getting into debt.
6:24 People are actually telling me that they’re having to use their credit cards just to put food on the table for their own families. Now, that is having a damaging effect. And if this carries on, and as you’ve said, London is now going into tier two, joining much of the north of England, where we’re currently under those restrictions in the pool, of course, is in tier three. But in tier two, in many ways, it’s the worst of all worlds because, effectively, as you’ve said, it bans people socialising in pubs, in bars, in clubs, in restaurants.
6:58 So you can go with your family and not something I’ll be certainly doing this weekend to continue to do what I can as an individual to support our pubs as well as the campaigning. But, you know, I can’t meet anyone else. I can’t meet friends. So that, effectively, is saying that pubs cannot operate, cannot operate normally. And that means that they cannot have sustainable levels of trade.
7:21 And that means publicans getting into personal debt where they run the pub business. And many staff are losing their jobs today. Marston’s have announced just this morning 2,100 pub jobs are to go. Mitchell and Butler’s, one of the other large managed pub companies, are also consulting over redundancies. And these are people who are operating in a very important and sustainable part of our economy that temporarily is being closed down.
7:54 But what happens when this is finally over as it will be? What happens when we have to realise that we have to get on and live our lives as normally as possible? Then those people won’t be there and other people will not be trained because the government has told them to go and train and do something else. So I’m afraid the outlook is very bleak and the government are not listening. They are listening only to the voice of those saying lock down, restrict and let’s do everything we can to keep these numbers down.
8:24 But there are many other numbers that are going up. And in the end, one of those numbers that will go up, which is an awful thing to say, but it’s true. We will see suicides. We will see suicides of those who are losing everything. Because as I say, this is a serious crisis, not just for pubs, not for an institution.
8:41 And indeed it is. But for those people, for those wonderful, hardworking people who’ve been on the front line, who’ve done all the things that the government has asked them to do, to keep their pub safe, to put in one-way systems, signage, to ensure people are socially distanced, to close off some of their tables, to enable that, providing sanitizer, putting screens in at their expense. And then actually they’re told, oh, well, now you can’t have people socializing.
9:09 And yet we’re not going to give you any support. It’s not good enough. And the human impact on those individuals and those families is going to be very, very severe. And we need the government. And indeed we need mayors, including the mayor of London, to wake up to that, to that human cost.
9:26 And I want to hear more people talking about that and acknowledging that there is a real risk to health and indeed life from the measures being taken. And that COVID is not the only thing to be looking at here as much as we all should do, as I’ve said, everything we can to minimize the spread and do what we can sensibly to control it. Tell me about why you think that the pubs and the restaurant industry is being targeted so heavily. Because in every experience I’ve had here in London, these people are going out of their ways, following everything by the book.
10:00 Like you said, the one-way systems, the hand sanitizers, closing down tables that are in between. I mean, and this is already in an industry that has to keep food safety standards. So everything already is primed to be one of the cleanest places you’re going to go. And yet this is the one that seems to be getting shut down first. Can you just tell me why you think that’s happening and, you know, yeah, the frustration you’re hearing from the pub owners?
10:26 Yeah, I think first of all, it’s easy to scapegoat pubs and publicans and to wrongly blame them actually for some of the incidences where people have occasionally behaved in a way that’s unacceptable. People have seen pictures, for example, of the curfew. Now, publicans and indeed many politicians and all the organizations representing hospitality including pubs have said that the curfew was a crazy idea in this country and it would indeed lead to those things.
10:58 But I think the other factor is that some people have this sense, oh, it’s only pubs, it’s only drinking. We don’t need to do that. We have to keep the schools open, which we should. People should go to university. Well, you know, I’m not sure quite that that has been the right thing to do if students are not getting the experience that they’ve paid for, frankly, I think that’s a separate issue.
11:20 But it’s this lack of understanding of the role that pubs themselves play in our communities, a vital role up and down, whether it’s in London pubs, which are so important to the capital and its character, and it’s appealed to the millions of tourists that come every year or whether it’s in our provincial towns, cities and villages. But it also completely fails to understand that reality. There’s so many families and I use that very deliberately. So many families, so many British families are reliant on pubs for their income. Now, that’s people who work behind the bar. It’s people who clean.
12:01 It’s the publicans themselves. And indeed, it’s their suppliers. It’s our brewers who are now finding that they can’t sell products, even that they brewed in areas like Liverpool. They already had their beer brewed and ready to go. And now the pubs are shut because they were shut with two days notice without any compensation.
12:18 So I’m afraid it appears to be a little easy for some people who have stable salaried jobs that are unaffected by this crisis to say, oh, close the pubs. We don’t need them without realizing the catastrophic effect that is having on lives, on human beings and on families. And if that carries on without support, then the impact on those lives and therefore on society will be very, very grave indeed. So I’d ask people rather than making good comments about how we can close pubs down that we don’t need pubs at this time, actually consider the impact of doing that on those people and on those families, because that has to be factored in and is clearly not being factored in to the thinking at the moment.
13:01 And our view is that pubs can and should operate sensibly. They’ve already shown that they can. They’ve shown that the spread is minimal and can be managed. And if people breach those rules, they should indeed be punished. But everyone else can operate sensibly and that at least allows people to continue to make a living.
13:19 But if the government closes businesses down and stops people making an honest living, stops people making a livelihood, stops them being able to feed their children, it must support them financially. And in a way, it’s not doing at the moment. And that is not sensible. So the government has to make a choice. If it’s going to introduce these restrictions, if that’s the strategy it intends to follow and it’s the government, it makes those decisions.
13:44 It must back that up with giving the evidence and explaining to people, but it must back it up with solid financial support. And not the meager package that is on offer only if you’re forced to close, because that is leaving so many pubs in London, now in tier two, in the rest of the country in tier two. And indeed in tier one, where the restrictions, the curfew and the rule of six apply, they need to support it, because frankly, many publicans are saying to me, they will never have a politician that hasn’t supported them through this in their pub again. It’s very easy.
14:19 I used to be one to have a picture taken in your local club and say, how much you love the pub. But now we need to see our politicians, our MPs, our national government, our government up in Scotland and our mayors of our cities and our councils, speaking up for pubs and publicans and fighting for that support if we have to have these restrictions. But I also think that we need to question the strategy, because in the end, I think we need to live alongside this awful disease.
14:49 And pubs and publicans have shown that that’s possible if we’re sensible. And I believe that would be the better strategy. But in the meantime, the government needs to dig into their pockets and support them before we have a catastrophe of losing pubs and also ruining lives. Yeah, you make some great points there, Greg. You know, first of all, if we remember back to March, you know, the lockdown, the concept of a lockdown was never supposed to be about preventing the transmission of the disease.
15:17 The purpose of a lockdown was to ease the strain on the NHS. We remember flatten the curve, flatten the curve, and we all bought into that scenario. And it was an intelligent decision at the time. But now, since we’re kind of conditioned to the lockdown, it’s being introduced again. But it’s not a tool to stop the spread of the virus.
15:34 It was always a tool to ease off our health sectors. And but now it seems to be the knee jerk kind of it’s the only thing that politicians seem to have. And if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And so that seems to be the only thing they can do. And they’re not thinking about the collateral damage you’re speaking of.
15:51 I mean, public’s pubs really are the fabric of of this country, of this city here in London, just as the theaters are, just as the Black Cabbies are. Just as so many of these small businesses are. And when you shut them down, they could be shut down forever. And it’s a real concern. Like you said, we’re not actually talking about the mental health concerns, even the physical health concerns that come on the back of an economy being crushed and decimating.
16:18 And we’re really seeing it now. I’m a bit frustrated by what I see happening in London with this lockdown. You know, what do you think drives, you know, mayors of large cities to really want to shut down and just bleed an economy when everyone I speak to and I’ve been speaking to you name it. Traders on the street, people in hospitality, people, entrepreneurs, people running coffee bars. Like I said, former police officers, they all want to find ways to continue people working safely.
16:48 Of course, why do you think that knee jerk reaction is to shut everything down? I think the truth is that our political leaders in Westminster and indeed in City Hall in London and elsewhere don’t really know how to best deal with this pandemic. It is unprecedented. And that applies to our scientists and people say follow the signs. But of course, there are many scientists with different views on how to best do this.
17:18 So there is no one best suggested way of doing this. I think that I think as you’ve said that the lockdown initially, when we didn’t know about this disease, how serious it was, was probably the right and essential decision to take at that time. Certainly it seemed so. And I think most people wouldn’t criticize the government for doing it. But I think the idea now of having sort of a series of lockdowns, because if lockdowns are needed, this so-called this awful word that people are using circuit breaker, this is a disease.
17:51 This is not an electric circuit. I find that quite an unhelpful phrase, as if suddenly that’s a click your fingers solution. And yet these this so-called circuit breaker lockdown doesn’t actually involve stopping people getting together in the areas where we know that the virus is spreading. Now, I have three school aged children myself. I think my kids do need to be in school and in education.
18:19 But that means that it’s being accepted that there will be a spread of COVID-19 in schools. That’s the decision. Let’s not. Let’s be honest about that. That decision has been taken.
18:30 So if it was really about controlling the virus, if it was a virus that had a higher death rate, and thank goodness, it is awful. And every single death of all conditions is a tragedy and very, very regrettable of people of any age. But if it was so essential to stop the spread of this disease, then schools could not be open. Workplaces could not be open. Students would not have been told to go back to university. And yet that’s not the case.
19:01 So the idea that simply shutting sections of our economy down and shutting down our pubs because they’re deemed not to be essential services, whilst allowing people to still go to the supermarket, to still go to school, it clearly is a flawed strategy. And then what do we do if it makes a slight difference and then the figures go up again? Do we have another one? Do we have another one then in late November before Christmas, over Christmas? Do we ban Christmas altogether?
19:31 I think that’s very unlikely that politicians would do that. And yet if you’re going to say, well, you can have Christmas, but we know that the virus will spread because you’re having Christmas. Well, how can that fit in with a strategy being presented to us that we need to keep locking things down? And in reality, I think it has become clear we’re not going to have a vaccine being developed in the short term. And all of us, of course, around the world, all human nature is facing this particular disease and pandemic.
20:03 We all wish that scientists anywhere in the world will find a vaccine. But even then, that is not the silver bullet. Scientists are clear about that. Probably we can’t vaccinate everybody anyway. That’s not realistic and may not even be necessary.
20:19 But it’s not going to happen in the short term. So we have to find a way to live alongside it. Now, that means changing our behavior. Someone reached out to give me a handshake, something that I would have willingly done a few months ago. And of course, they don’t know we can’t do that at the moment.
20:34 I didn’t want to look rude, but we have to do things like that. We have to have that little bit of distance between people. You know, I haven’t seen my own parents since February. And that’s and that’s tough. But we all accept things like this.
20:48 But simply thinking that there are easy click your fingers solutions that sound good when you’re on a radio interview or a television interview making a soundbite. I’m afraid that is not going to deal with this very complex situation where we have the ongoing spread of covid-19 in places like schools, in places like workplaces, essential workplaces. You know, I had a plumber visit yesterday. I had to have a plumber come round because I had a leak. You know, I can’t stop that happening and nor would anyone suggest it.
21:18 So we need to just change our behavior, find a way to live alongside it. And I think our argument is that pubs and restaurants have shown that that is possible. You know, I once we got used to it after the fourth of July, as it was, of course, here, that was a great day for us here with pubs finally being able to reopen. So much effort had gone in so much expense in perspex screens, in signage, in sanitizers, one way systems, signs on the floor, extra outdoor space to keep people safe.
21:51 And, you know, once people have done it, I was encouraging people to say, yeah, try it. You know, I know you’re probably feeling nervous, but try it. And everyone who then did said, yes, you know what, I feel really safe. I feel safer in the pub than I do in the supermarket than I do wandering around in town and city centers. So actually, and it’s a reminder, you know, when you go into an environment like that and you’re told, yes, you know, you’ve got to do this.
22:14 Can you pay by card? Can you make sure that you, you know, stand two metres apart, follow the signage? Now masks, if we’ve got to wear masks, you know, then then we’ll do it. But we can’t just keep closing things down because the consequences of doing that are not being understood by too many people. And I think in the end, we we need to do that.
22:35 And pubs, I believe, have shown the way and shown they can do it. But unless they’re allowed to get back to doing that, to doing that without unnecessary restrictions, then I’m afraid we will lose many of them as well as having many, many people struggling, facing hardship in many cases, looking for work. And then we have another whole host of problems in society and illnesses, mental illness, physical illness. It’s just not a strategy that is sustainable.
23:04 And I think we’re almost at that tipping point. Yeah, I mean, for the past few weeks, I’ve noticed three major concerns I have. The first is just a total lack of leadership. I don’t feel like our politicians really understand what it’s like to be on the ground, especially as business owners. Second thing I see is a disproportionate response to the virus.
23:22 And finally, a total lack of science based decision making. And as you said, every death is a tragedy. We should try to prevent it. But this response is disproportionate. I looked at the figures last week for one day.
23:34 The smoking-related illnesses was 10 times those of COVID for the day. And yet, Greg, there wasn’t a lockdown on tobacco stores. And that’s the problem. This government doesn’t seem to be making a proportionate decision. And they seem to also be going for these convenient sound bites, like you said, circuit breakers.
23:54 And they seem to be making these things that, I mean, quite frankly, to me feel like they’re just plays to get elected again. They don’t seem to be really understanding the concerns of the small businessmen. I’ve been an entrepreneur for going on 20 years right now. And uncertainty is the worst thing for an entrepreneur. You mentioned in Liverpool, you can’t tell people with two days notice that you can’t be selling your brew anymore.
24:18 The worst thing you can do for a business is give them uncertainty in the future. And yet, that’s exactly what we’re doing with these random changes, these tears that can change, these curfews that can change. And that’s a real killer for entrepreneurs. They need to really understand what they can do and what the future looks like. And it’s something that’s a real concern.
24:39 And it’s something I just wish our politicians understood a little bit more and understood, well, this is the fabric of our economy. This is what we need to do to keep it safe and keep us moving forward. Now, I just see these lockdowns just ruining everything. And I don’t see some of these businesses coming back. And I can’t imagine some of these pubs, these local pubs, that really are the only meeting place for some of these communities going out of business, maybe never to come back.
25:06 And if they’re replaced, are they going to be replaced by a franchise coffee bar? It’s not the same thing, is it, Greg? Yeah, and that is what we’re facing. I mean, it’s already happening, I’m afraid, in parts of the country. London, of course, has a particular problem because of the fact that people are not going to work in the same way.
25:27 That’s desperate for all those pubs that are reliant on the office trade, for taxi drivers as well. You know, there are many people who are really struggling. And I don’t hear their voices being listened to in, you know, in City Hall or in Westminster. And they really need to be because, as you say, you know, we are ready to lose part of our heritage and our history. Something as a country that around the world people identify with as being British.
25:56 You know, what do you think of the key thing in the British world? Maybe the Queen, maybe. But certainly the pub would be in there, I think, in a top five of things that people from other countries think about as, yeah, the great British pub. And yet we’re on the verge of destroying it through what I believe is the wrong strategy. But even if the government insists on this strategy, it must properly support the businesses.
26:21 It did at the beginning. There was support for many pubs at the beginning. Not all. There was, unfortunately, a bizarre situation where larger pubs were not offered access to any grants. So it was one of those loopholes.
26:35 But nevertheless, there was support for other pubs. But now, you know, there’s this complete lack of understanding that these restrictions and the restrictions for all pubs at the 10 p.m. curfew and the mandatory table service, which frankly, you know, if you go into a pub, you’ll realize that makes stuff less safe than if they were serving the more traditional British way behind a bar with a perspex screen. But of course, it also means that you have to have extra staff to be able to serve at the table.
27:05 That’s an extra cost when you’ve got less trade. But then when you add the other restrictions of tier two, the possibility of closure with tier three or complete closure in a national lockdown, as you say, it’s impossible for businesses, including pubs to know what to do to plan. If pubs in Liverpool, if they’re allowed to open again in, say, a month’s time, and that’s not clear, they don’t know, then they need time. They need at least two weeks notice toward appearing to get ready.
27:41 But how many will feel confident doing that? Because then they might be told another three weeks later, oh, we’ve got to do it again. It’s not sustainable. It’s not fair. And it’s not working.
27:50 And I’m afraid I can tell you certainly, Brian, that the government has lost the confidence of Britain’s publicans. There is real anger and dismay at the way their voice is being ignored and the way that they are being restricted and restricted and scapegoated and not being supported. We’ve collected already 1,200 publicans signing a letter to the prime minister expressing that, sorry, the Chancellor. We sent another one to the prime minister yesterday.
28:23 And that’s expressing that anger. And there are more publicans signing that all the time. But there is real anger at the way that pubs are being treated. And, you know, if that carries on, then I think you will start to hear that expressed more and more in pubs up and down the country. And as you see closures, I think communities will join that anger, too.
28:42 And I hope they do. But I hope the government sees sense and actually realize that they do need to change course, that they do need to review these restrictions, but also where they do impose them, that they give proper support, which isn’t happening at the moment. Well, they’re right to be angry. And it does feel like that entire industry is being scapegoated. I remember they asked Professor Graham Medley, who sits on the Sage Committee of Scientific Advisors for the prime minister.
29:07 They asked him about the curfew and he said, quote, it was never discussed. And I was flabbergasted to find out. And again, it seems like that convenience soundbite to show that they’re doing something. But there’s entire industries and livelihoods that are feeling the brunt of that. And like you said, while other industries and areas rightfully so are staying open, again, it’s just disproportionate and it doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t make any science.
29:33 And so it’s frustrating to see. And back to your point about a circuit breaker, I hate that term as well, because stopping a business cold in its tracks is the worst thing you can do, because restarting it is very hard and it’s an unknown. And it means a lot of entrepreneurs are going to pack it in. You know, I spoke to Jonathan Downey here who had five restaurants in London, one of them 18 year old milk and honey, who just it just closed. I think it was the first official casualty of the pandemic.
30:00 He’s left the country. He’s packed it up. He’s gone. He’s like, I’m leaving for a couple of months. I mean, this is what you’re going to do to the entrepreneurial spirit of these pubs and these businesses.
30:10 We need it for our culture. So I don’t like these terms either. The uncertainty means businesses can’t plan. They can’t staff. They can’t invest.
30:18 And we already had a process that seemed to be working. So yeah, I’m as frustrated with you. It doesn’t make sense to me. And yeah, I want to find some of the way around that. Again, this is a de facto closure of pubs is what we’re seeing, because like you say, you can’t gather at these places and it’s effectively shutting them down.
30:36 And it’s going to slow this economy down even more. And the mental health, it’s not even funny. I had Steve McNamara in here, who is the head of one of the largest taxi unions here, eight thousand black cabbies belonging to it. I mean, I talk to black cabbies every single night. I take one and they’re saying the revenues are down 50, 60 percent.
30:55 They’re driving around alone. They don’t know what to do. They’re paying back loans for these brand new green electric cabs they invested in. Again, it’s part of the culture of London. You think of the Queen, black cabs, red phone boxes, pubs.
31:10 You know, I have a lot of listeners that are from overseas. The pub is the thing they dream of coming to when they come to England. And we’ve got to keep these businesses alive. Final thoughts from you, Greg, on what people can do, because I’m sure this message is resonating with a lot of our viewers and listeners. What can they do to send the signal to their elected representatives to make the change?
31:31 And how can they help support you and your movement? Well, I think everyone who cares about pubs, whether they work in a pub, whether they own a pub, run a pub, or just drink in a pub and love our pub culture and the role it plays, they should write to their own MP, their own Member of Parliament, and demand support for pubs. And I’d also ask them to join the campaign for pubs. It’s only £25 a year. It’s less than the cost of a pint.
31:59 In fact, in London, it’s probably about the cost of half a pint of beer. That’s all it takes, £25 a year. And you can join whether you’re a Republican, whether you’re a customer, whether you’re a pub campaigner. But the more people that join, the louder the voice will be, because we need to speak up for our pubs and we need to do it now. And if people join, we will give them advice on what to say to their MP, the kind of things that we are calling for as part of a comprehensive package of support.
32:29 And the third thing that they can do is where they’re able to within the law, whatever we think of the restrictions, you know, people do have to have to follow them or they risk getting fined and getting pubs fined and we don’t want that. But they must go and support them. You know, I’ve been supporting them. It doesn’t mean checking the rules, but, you know, I popped out to one of my local pubs just last night, partly because, you know, we’re having rumours that in this part of the world, in Leeds, in Yorkshire, we may be facing tier three.
33:00 So I went out because of that to chat to a local publican and ended up having a chat with people. We were all at different tables. We hadn’t gone to meet. There was a couple of couples who were there together because they’re couples. Then the rest were individuals sitting at tables.
33:15 We had a wonderful hour and a half just sitting, talking about a lot of these issues, actually, talking about the frustration with the government. But we still managed to have some of that atmosphere and that culture that you get in a pub. So please do get out and support them as well. But yeah, join the campaign for pubs, campaign for pubs.org.uk. Write to your MP and keep supporting your pubs because we need them to get through this.
33:42 We need to have our pubs and our pub culture preserved on the other side of this crisis. Yeah, and you said it so well there, Greg. I mean, we’re social animals. We crave that interaction and we’ve proven that we can do it safely with these measures. We here are for a science-based approach, a proportional sponsor of the virus.
33:59 But let’s keep these businesses open if we can and we can safely. And the Public Health England numbers show that we can. This is probably the safest place you can go to be, to be social, to also continue with the economy. It’s so important. I can’t imagine these places not being open over Christmas holidays.
34:17 I mean, they really must. So it’s important that we get this message to our elected officials and just say, you know, it’s time to find solutions, not to find catchy words like circuit breakers that are really going to have long-term damage. That’s the thing. We can’t appreciate the years and years and maybe even decades of long-term damage we’re doing to our economy. And that’s what makes Britain great is really, is what we do and what we create.
34:44 So I appreciate that. I appreciate everybody listening and watching. And yeah, find a way that we can get the message out there. Support your local pub. Support your local businesses in any way possible.
34:54 Understand what they’re going through. And yeah, I’m really hoping we can find an intelligent way forward here. So Greg, thanks for all the hard work you’re doing. I know it’s tireless and I appreciate what you’re doing. I know you’re also trying to do a lot of work helping these people stay in business with, you know, foregoing and pushing back rent payments.
35:12 It’s important work to be done. But everyone I speak to on the streets all wants the same things, strangely enough. They all want to get, you know, London back to work, Britain back to work. They all want to do it safely. They want to protect those that are in danger, but they don’t want to stop cold.
35:30 That’s not what they want. So appreciate your thoughts, Greg, and thank you for being here. Thank you, Brian. All right, great. Keep up the hard work.
35:38 Again, if this message resonated with you, please contact your elected officials. Tell them what you want to go forward. Join the Confederation of Pubs and join Greg for this fight. And let’s just keep putting these messages out there. Again, we’re trying to get London back to work.
35:55 We know we can do it safely, but every day we wait has long-term consequences. So let’s take action. Let’s keep moving forward. Let’s stay optimistic, and thank you for the time today, and thank you, Greg.
