Should we nationalise pubs to save them for our post-Covid-19 world? | Matt Mohan-Hickson ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

George Orwell described his perfect pub in the 1948 essay The Moon Under Water.
WORTH SAVING: Life would be unimaginable without pubs such as The Glencoe at Gosport.WORTH SAVING: Life would be unimaginable without pubs such as The Glencoe at Gosport.
WORTH SAVING: Life would be unimaginable without pubs such as The Glencoe at Gosport.

In his vision, it would have Victorian architecture and fittings, the barmaids would know customers by name, there would have a good fire burning in winter, it would sell cigarettes, aspirin and stamps and would never serve a pint of beer in a handleless glass, among other things.

That one of Britain’s most pre-eminent 20th century writers would dedicate a whole essay to pubs shows how important to the national psyche they are.

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‘Pub?’ must be one of the most asked questions in the country on a daily basis, next to something about the weather. If we are leaning into cliches.

Yet when we make it to the other side of the coronavirus crisis, whenever that may be, our local watering holes may not be there waiting for us.

Michael Gove warned that pubs will be among the last businesses to reopen once the lockdown is lifted, with the chief executive of UK Hospitality warning that a third of pubs could be put at risk if the measures lasted until Christmas.

In 2018, Portsmouth was crowned the pub capital of the country with 12 pubs per square mile. So, if the worst case scenario predictions turned out to be true then our city could lose four pubs per square mile as collateral damage from the coronavirus crisis.

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To lose a third of our pubs would be nothing short of a disaster.

We need things to look forward to, the light at the end of the tunnel to guide us through the dark days of the lockdown.

Otherwise it is all too easy to get stuck in the negative of the pandemic and being trapped at home away from friends and loved ones.

It’s why it could be an interesting idea to think about whether the government could nationalise those pubs which are at risk?

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Keep them alive until normality returns then, like the banks, the government can sell off their shares at a later date. It’s probably an unrealistic idea and I don’t have a clue how it would work, but the idea of a severely depleted pub scene in our city and the country as a whole just sounds dystopian to me.

A pathetic fallacy, the way weather’s defined lockdown

If there is anything I remember from GCSEs, which is not much aside from a loathing of Shrek after being forced to watch it 100 times for mock coursework, it is the concept of pathetic fallacy.

It is a fancy term you come across when studying classic literature. It refers to giving human emotions to things found in nature, in particular weather. For example if clouds seem sullen, or a boulder indifferent.

Well, if the sunny weather that defined the early part of lockdown might have seemed hopeful or optimistic, the sudden return of rain seemed to be the harbinger of despair as the death toll rose higher and the prospect of escape from home arrest looks slim any time soon.

Is streaming now giving us the attention of a goldfish?

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What would we do in the lockdown if it was not for Netflix? Read a book? Talk to the people we live with? Learn a new skill? Who’s got the time or energy for that?

We can waste hours, if not days, bingeing on show after show after show.

But with Netflix’s relentless churn of content made available every day, it can be so hard to stick with just one thing to watch.

By the time you are a few episodes in to, say, the latest season of After Life, bang, the new season of The Last Kingdom has been released.

I can’t count the graveyard of half-finished shows on my watch list on Netflix now.

It is hard to concentrate on just one when there is so much choice.

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