Keir Starmer claims he has a plan to save the struggling hospitality sector, but the detail is thin and all his other actions – like banning vapes and junkfood advertising – suggest his every impulse is to control people’s behaviour, says Eliot Wilson

“Pubs and bars are the beating heart of our communities. Under our Plan for Change, we’re backing them to thrive.”

It was not necessarily a sentiment you might expect from Sir Keir Starmer, a man who handles a half-pint like a grenade with a loose pin. But it is, seemingly, a welcome one. The hospitality industry in general and the licensed trade in particular are facing a dire situation: last year 289 pubs closed in England and Wales, and 2,250 have gone out of business since 2019. Britain now has fewer than 45,000 pubs, and if the rate of decline were to continue, the last boozer would close its doors in 2050.

If the government is “backing them to thrive”, this must be great news for pubs, then? Keep the champagne on ice for a moment, and understand what the Prime Minister is actually promising.

The government has announced a

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