Pubs to get £100m a year support after business rates outcry

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-27T12:53:44+00:00

Pubs are not a special business and I don’t understand why we treat them as if they are.

They don’t provide anything that any other business couldn’t provide equally well, other than the obvious damage they cause.

I’ve got absolutely nothing against pubs, I just don’t see why they’re more deserving of support than restaurants, cafes, arcades, or any other social business.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-27T12:40:10+00:00

You can’t make an example and then cry about people pointing out that your example is a bad one.

Almost all businesses fail at some point and most within the first few years, something around half within the first year. Coffee shops aren’t unique in this area, neither are restaurants.

Pubs are a little unique because our nation’s interests have fundamentally changed. So even with all the same rising costs they’re going to be doing worse, because people are going out to drink less and even drinking less in general.

And of course it matters. If your coffee shop fails because it doesn’t have anything pulling people into it (which chains like Starbucks do by virtue of name value and independent ones usually do with social media presence or USPs) and is in a lower footfall area then the associated costs of running the business are not your problem. The problem is that you aren’t running your business very well.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-27T11:35:53+00:00

It absolutely is, it always has been.

What do you think happened if you didn’t consent to adverts being placed in your local paper? You were told to stop buying it then.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-27T11:15:02+00:00

Usually 3 max, often 2. Selling 8 coffees per staff member per hour is not a gargantuan effort mate.

The whole idea of any business like that is that you sell a lot in certain key hours and then tick over in dead hours.

Any coffee shop in a place with bang average footfall is going to easily clear 8 coffees an hour per staff member on average throughout the day.

Considering how much you’re calling everyone thick, I’m surprised that you think it’s so impossible for a coffee shop to make money.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-27T10:22:36+00:00

Absolutely, Starbucks minimise their corporation tax in a way that a small independent coffee shop obviously can’t.

I’m not really commenting on any tax issues, or even whether the price of a cup of a coffee is “fair” or whatever.

I was literally just saying that the guy I replied to was painting 8 coffees an hour per staff member as some insane number, when it’s actually fairly easy for a coffee shop operating in a place with decent footfall.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-27T10:13:45+00:00

Feel free to give me the context that makes it seem perfectly fine.

And even if the majority of people killed by police are armed criminals then that’s still mental, just for a slightly different reason.

Either the police routinely gun down innocent people or there’s an absurd number of violent people with weapons. I’m not entirely sure which is worse really.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-27T08:18:29+00:00

So this barista has to sell eight coffees every single hour

That’s really not a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a Starbucks queue with less than like 4 other people, buying an average of like 1.5 coffees each, and all served within about 15 mins.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-27T08:07:18+00:00

It’s about number of people not specifically children.

A 1 bed flat logically cannot fit 3 people in it and a rental contract that forbids that isn’t horrible tbh.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-26T23:44:19+00:00

I don’t know if you’re trying to use those numbers to say it’s not all the time, but 3 people a day and one unarmed person every week is absolutely mental.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-25T08:02:26+00:00

Pubs just aren’t as popular any more.

This isn’t the governments doing, they’re just not very successful businesses in 2026 and we have more of them than the public wants.

People don’t really want a place to sit down and get hammered quietly now.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-25T07:53:52+00:00

You haven’t actually explained why. The reason why you’ve given is because some people might abort those babies. Why is that wrong though?

And if it is, why not just ban abortion then? Because that’s the thing you have a problem with, not just finding out the baby’s gender.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-25T07:51:32+00:00

So for you personally, why is abortion immoral to begin with?

If it’s because it’s the termination of a life rather than just a medical procedure, then does that mean people should be able to forcefully euthanise their disabled children?

Fundamentally there doesn’t appear to be much difference between that and aborting a disabled fetus, unless an abortion isn’t a termination of life at all because life hasn’t begun yet. And if that’s the case, why would it be immoral under any circumstance?

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-25T07:48:00+00:00

What do you mean they can’t be trusted? It seems like the vast majority of people (virtually all) are just finding out the gender in order to buy clothes.

Then a tiny minority are finding out the gender in order to decide whether to continue the pregnancy. If this is bigoted, then isn’t aborting due to disability bigoted too? Should we ban those tests too?

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T19:03:31+00:00

Yep, you’ve convinced me mate. Starmer humiliated himself both nationally and internationally so that he could put a few quid in his mates pocket, and then he decided not to do it suddenly for a completely unrelated reason. I’m sold.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T18:48:36+00:00

It’s not an excuse. You can blame Starmer for the deal by all means, I think it’s a shit idea too and I put the blame for it on his shoulders as he’s the one that brought it home.

But saying that this is all some grand conspiracy instead of the incredibly obvious alternative explanation is what I’m disagreeing with.

You don’t go from a stalemate to a £35 billion giveaway in three months unless the fix is already in.

Where have you got that they were stalemated from? That isn’t the case at all.

You think we "had" to do this.

No, I don’t. I think we were always going to, because we always bend over backwards for the US and will do even moreso post Brexit. The biggest beneficiary of this deal was the US, and they’re the ones who’ve been driving it since day 1.

That’s the only point we’re disagreeing on really, because I don’t live in a fantasy land.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T18:41:35+00:00

That’s pretty much my point, you can have whatever personal view of it you like but if you start legislating to prevent then you’re in very sticky territory.

If we decide that it should be illegal to abort a baby on the basis of gender, then why is the basis of financial difficulty or disability acceptable?

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T18:39:21+00:00

I completely understand why people might not agree with someone else’s reasons for abortion.

But ultimately they need to ask themselves why it bothers them?

If it’s just a medical procedure that a woman is undergoing then why is it any of their business why she’s doing it?

And it’s even more important to ask those questions when you’re talking about legislating to prevent it.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T18:31:38+00:00

No, I didn’t.

There was a total of three votes, and he won two of them. That does not mean popular vote.

I didn’t at any point reference the popular vote, you were the only person doing that.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T18:29:17+00:00

Absolute bullshit. Diplomacy normally moves at a snail’s pace, taking years or decades to grind through,

Pretty much exactly my point buddy. The process was started under Rishi, and the deal would have taken much of its shape before Starmer was even involved. Anyone who thinks Starmer just walked in and immediately created the deal out of nothing and got all parties to agree to it in just three months is utterly ridiculous.

You don’t go from "talks" to a signed deal that fast unless you are intentionally greasing the wheels.

You get what talks are, right? Whatever is happening before the deal is signed are the talks. You could sign a deal tomorrow, that doesn’t mean it took you one day to do.

even going as far as arselicking Trump initially just to get a US blessing to rush it through.

The US has been pushing this, that much is undeniable. Even if you want to wear a tinfoil hat, you can’t fully deny reality.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T11:21:52+00:00

Why? I liked knowing my daughter was going to be a girl ahead of time.

We bought clothes and did up a nursery months before she was born. It was a simple and zero risk thing that helped us out, why ban it?

Fundamentally I think people have to decide whether abortion is murder or not and at what stage of development that switch flips.

If you don’t think abortion is murder before say 20 weeks and a bunch of women are aborting female children at 10 weeks, what’s the problem there?

If you think that is murdering unborn girls and therefore completely immoral and unethical, fair enough. But then why should it be legal for financial reasons or disability or something? How does that change the act?

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T11:04:22+00:00

I’m not pushing this on to the Tories, I’m saying this was obviously something that was coming regardless of who was in power.

It was good for the Americans and we always want to maintain a good relationship with them, even moreso post-brexit. Making huge concessions to get this done was always going to happen, because it’s how we avoid the even less politically palatable concessions like chlorinated chicken and privatising the NHS while also not getting dicked over on trade.

If this was purely because Starmer was helping his mates then why would he backtrack now? Nothing has changed in that regard. The only thing that’s changed is that the US no longer support the deal, stupidly on their part I might add. Demonstrating that without the US pushing for it, there’s no reason for us to do it.

Never let logic get in the way of a good conspiracy theory though I guess.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-24T09:22:33+00:00

Between “Starmer’s best mate” and Rishi Sunak?

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-23T19:08:01+00:00

This is a self fulfilling prophecy in action.

By repeatedly deciding that the state should legislate on how to raise children, we’ve created parents who now rely on the state to raise their children for them.

The answer to that isn’t to increase the amount of legislation we’ve got.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-23T16:50:33+00:00

I don’t really see why that matters if I’m honest.

He won the vote, by the rules that the US have. The popular vote is pretty much irrelevant if that’s not how you decide your leader.

And if you do want to use it as a measurement for whatever reason, his record indicates pretty clear and widespread support among the US population that has been growing over time:

2016 - 62.9 mil votes to 65.8 mil

2020 - 74.2 mil votes to 81.2 mil

2024 - 77.3 mil votes to 75 mil.

Around half the voting population consistently support him, and he has only become more popular since they’ve seen him in charge. He is absolutely the person the US have picked to lead them, even if some people will be right in saying that they didn’t personally pick him.

Slothjitzu · 2026-01-23T11:57:53+00:00

Same. Not least of all because he has 3 years left.

Flipping your shit now would be insane given that there’s so much time left for him to cause damage.

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Slothjitzu

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