Wetherspoon boss: Brits will have to get used to an £8 pint
Wetherspoon CEO Tim Martin has warned Brits that a pint will “quite probably” hit £8 – but he’ll try and keep prices lower in his own pubs.
Breweries have been upping prices in recent months as a result of higher energy costs and price pressure in the supply chain.
A number of breweries are reportedly watering down beer in order to save on costs, as well as qualify for a tax break.
Martin said he thinks that is a “crazy move.”
“It’s financed by tax because if you bring beer down to 3.4%, which is much lower than almost any beer you’d ever buy in a pub, you get a big tax break on the basis of the incredibly stupid reasoning that people will drink less alcohol if they drink weak beer. That’s just not the way people are. So, I think it’s a bad idea. Brewers have jumped on the bandwagon [because] they can’t resist the 25p tax break,” he told Andrew Marr in an interview on LBC.
Martin, who has been an outspoken critic of politicians in recent years but was an ardent supporter of Boris Johnson, said democracy was “always chaotic and shambolic” and that the former Prime Minister “struggled” with the administration of the job as Prime Minister.
The pub entrepreneur warned that politicians were too led by private polling and not enough by a pro-business agenda.
After the 1970s, Martin said, “all the political parties realised for a successful country, you need to encourage business, you need to encourage entrepreneurs. Now, I think that’s definitely been lost.”
Now what it seems to me politicians are doing is private polling, trying to find an idea that appeals that week, and implementing it that week. So, it’s all shooting from the hip. They haven’t got an overarching economic policy that encourages entrepreneurs,” he added.