A great week for fiscally prudent gourmands, as this week marked the opening of the Government's Eat Out to Help Out scheme. An awkwardly titled affair (insert your own jokes here, actually, insert's the wrong word, different act altogether), which is intended to help the hospitality industry recover from the ravages of the COVID pandemic, it sees HM Treasury pay up to a tenner a head towards the cost of a meal.
The Government paying you to go out for tea, what's not to like?
Now, one could certainly make the case that this is the sort of innovative thinking required to steer the country through choppy economic waters, and evidence on the ground suggests that public uptake of the idea has been enthusiastic (we were rushed off our feet, busiest Wednesday ever*), Hats off to Rishi for daring to be different, and a big thumbs up for cheap steaks all round. Happy punters, full restaurants, a shot in the arm for an ailing industry.
One could also make the case that this is an absolute Horlicks of an idea which will cost the Treasury 500 million quid to little net benefit. Guess which case I'm going to make?
I'm not going to argue that, for the restaurant and cafe going public, this is anything other than wonderful news. As a part of said demographic, I thoroughly enjoyed money off coffee and cake in a nice cafe in Parbold, and a big chunk knocked off a family dinner at our local Chinese. And it will probably mean I go out for a meal more than usual. So that's the good aspect. Maybe more people will be encouraged to go out. I'm trying very hard to be fair here. It's a strain.
Okay, now the down-sides. We were going out for these meals and snacks anyway, we can afford to pay the going rate. It's saved me a few quid, but that's x pounds that the Treasury could have spent elsewhere. There was a particularly aggravating tweet where ex-Health secretary, Jeremy Hunt (net worth: £18 million) lauded fifty quid off his lunch at his local pub. I put it to you, gentle reader, that Jeremy Hunt can afford that fifty quid, and that the taxpayer's just handed him a discount.
Because I have a suspicion that people who are going to go out for dinner, are going to go out for dinner anyway, regardless of whether or not there's a Government offer to do so. All this offer has done is move those dinners to Mon-Wed. A suspicion confirmed when Thursday was deserted. So, despite my busy Wednesday, I found myself, after two days of my working week, with as much money in the bank as I'd normally have at that stage, it was just that one day was manic and one day was dead. I'm not sure that this policy's quite the winner that Rishi thinks it is, even if he does get to pose with a plate in Wagamama's.
Because that's largely what this policy's about, isn't it? Financially it doesn't make a huge deal of sense. Indeed, it's absolutely screaming out to commit fraud. Were I the type that needed to launder money, ringing a bunch of fake orders through, only then to have my investment doubled with lovely clean treasury backed income would be an absolute no-brainer (particularly if I were already ringing through those lovely, strings-free 50K bounce-back loans, it's double-bubble). It's more about a bit of feelgood, a bit of headline grabbing, a soupcon of Rishi maneuvering himself for a crack at the top job when the wheels finally come off the clown car that is the Johnson administration. This is a government which had to be shamed by a footballer into continuing free school meals for poverty-stricken children, but they're perfectly happy to stump up 500 million quid for me to go for a meal I can already afford. Ill thought out doesn't begin to cover it.
*I'm closed on a Monday and Tuesday, and have zero intention of opening up purely for people after cheap food, I have my reasons.**
**Oh alright then. Many years ago, I worked at an ersatz French bistro. The sort of mid-range gaff which feeds the reasonably well-heeled and aspiringly so. It was reasonably priced anyway, but every Tuesday, there was an offer of two courses for £10 (the imaginatively titled Tuesday Tenner). Staff hated it, because it was always full of ill mannered graspers who didn't tip and behaved atrociously. These were also all people who could afford to eat out, the money they saved on food was spent instead on carafe after carafe of the house wine. Normally, in restaurants, your midweek diners are the home team, they're the ones who know how to behave, their spend per head is reasonable, you've got a decent chance of selling them interesting specials, it's a pleasant relationship all round. This lot, however, didn't really care about the food, only the price.
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