You may be getting a little tired right now of loud opinionated male millionaires throwing their weight around but they can be right sometimes. One loud opinionated male millionaire in particular has been talking about national insurance and VAT and how we could make it better and we should listen to him because what he’s done has been pretty good on the whole. We could do with some more of it frankly.

The millionaire in question is Sir Tim Martin of Wetherspoons and I know some of you may roll your eyes and think: his hair is from the 1980s and his opinions are from the 1880s, but there’s no doubting the success he’s had with his pub business. He named it after an old teacher who told him he’d amount to nothing and here we are, some 50 years later and Wetherspoons has 800 pubs across the UK (60 of them in Scotland) and the company’s worth £720m. Not bad, as we say in Britain when we mean very good.

Chances are you already know that Sir Tim has strong opinions on Brexit and lockdowns (pro the former, anti the latter) and the opinions have contributed without a doubt to the snobby reaction that he, and his pubs, get from some people. Supporting Brexit, questioning Covid restrictions, and having a pint at Wetherspoons are all seen as rather vulgar. The beer’s cheap, the opinions are wrong, the menus are laminated, and people are having a good time. How awful.

The Counting House in Glasgow (Image: free) But let’s listen to what Sir Tim’s been saying........

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