The UK is an expensive place to run a business, particularly in the hospitality industry. Andy Maciver argues that by crippling the hospitality industry we damage not just the economy, but society too.

You haven’t really eaten spaghetti alla carbonara until you’ve eaten it in Lazio, its Italian home. I know, I know, you were at an Italian restaurant in town at the weekend and you ate spaghetti alla carbonara, but in actuality you only think you did. Until you’ve consumed it in a Roman trattoria, you haven’t really consumed it at all. For a start you probably had it with pancetta or smoked bacon, rather than with the traditional guanciale (cured pork cheek). You probably had a cream based sauce and parmesan cheese, rather than an entirely egg-based sauce with pecorino romano. It’s just different. It’s eggier, it’s richer, it’s meatier - and it’s much, much cheaper.

I’ll cease the amateur imitation of a food critic now, because it’s the final point - the price - which stayed with me as much as the taste when I left a restaurant in the centre of Rome a couple of Fridays ago. At €11 for my carbonara, €3 for my starter (supplì, if you’re interested - fried rice balls with mozzarella and ragu) and another €11 for a litre of house white wine (don’t worry, not all for me), my pockets still felt fairly heavy as I departed.

I felt my temperature rise a little, though, as I thought about how much it would have cost to feed the family the same meal at an Italian restaurant back home. I couldn’t quite resist checking. The answer is that a fairly mid-range Italian in Edinburgh, spaghetti alla carbonara will set you back something around £17. You would not get any kind of starter - let alone a handmade, authentic........

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