12/06/2026
You honestly couldn’t make this rubbish up if you tried! 🤡
So, Rachel Reeves popped up on a pre-recorded video at the UKHospitality conference yesterday to give us all a lovely pat on the head! 🙄
She looked right into the camera and told a room full of bleeding, cash-strapped operators that she knows we’ve endured a "genuinely hard period" and that the Government doesn’t "underestimate that for a moment." 😳
I nearly choked on my morning pint! 🍺
✋ But wait, it gets even better!
After telling us how much she feels our pain, she finishes with this absolute gem of a soundbite:
"When hospitality thrives, Britain thrives." 🤮
Brilliant, Rachel. Gold star for that slogan! ⭐️
🤔 But, what are you actually doing to help us thrive?
Absolutely nothing! ❌
In fact, she’s actively asking the sector to "work with the Government to drive growth." 🤮
Translation: "We're going to keep tax-gouging you into early graves, but could you lot please pull a miracle out of your rear ends so we can take the credit for any turnaround?" 🪦
📣 The entire industry is screaming for a permanent VAT cut to 10% just to survive! 📣
The petition has smashed past 200,000 signatures in days because pubs, restaurants, and cafes are going to the wall every single week under the weight of utility bills, business rates, and 20% VAT (the second highest rate in the whole of Europe!!!) 🤯🤬
🤨 And what is the Chancellor's grand solution?
A temporary, panicked summer gimmick cutting VAT on soft play centres and children’s meals! 🛝🍟
Brilliant! Because nothing saves a traditional British wet-led pub quite like a tax break on a bowl of dinosaur nuggets and a trip to a ball pit. 👌🙄
🤡 They don’t have a clue! They genuinely do not get it.
You can’t tax a sector into oblivion, strip away its margins, ignore its desperate pleas for structural reform, and then turn around and ask it to be the "engine of growth." 📉
We aren’t an engine anymore, Rachel. 🚗❌
Thanks to you lot, we're running on absolute fumes. 💨😵
If you want us to thrive, stop with the video messages, drop the empty PR slogans, and just cut the bloody VAT!!!
Until then, keep your bad advice to yourself!
Rant over! 🙄
(Link to article below, for anyone who fancies throwing up! 👇🤮)
Chancellor Rachel Reeves calls on hospitality to help drive economic confidence, citing rates relief and summer measures, as industry ramps up calls for a VAT cut.
