W.daler

[Ben Graham @BenGrahamUK]

The UK has crossed a line.

Welfare spending: £333 billion
Income tax revenue: £331 billion

We’re now paying out more than we bring in from workers.

This is unsustainable.

[Sacha Lord @Sacha_Lord]

For my first monthly piece for the Evening Standard, I’ve chosen to write about the one single mechanism that can save Hospitality.

A reduction in VAT.

[Matt Gubba @MattGubba]

This is the Laffer Curve in real life.

Rachel Reeves hiked Capital Gains Tax, and CGT receipts fell by £1.4 billion.

Higher tax. Less revenue.

Investors aren't stupid. When taxes get too high, people change their behaviour: they delay sales, move money, or leave the country.

You don't get more revenue by punishing success. You get less.

Rachel Reeves doubled down on wealth taxes in the last Budget and promised it would "raise money." It didn't. It backfired.

This happens when ideology replaces basic economics: you kill investment, scare off capital, and the Treasury ends up poorer.

Britain doesn't have a tax collection problem; it has a tax policy problem.

For growth and revenue, reward people for investing. Don't chase them away.

Raise taxes too far and the money disappears. Every time.

[Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10]

Lots of requests on this. I'll keep the form open so more businesses can add their name to our open letter for Reeves urging a change on business rates.

It's now at a staggering 6,500.

If you're a concerned business owner, please sign/share.

https://t.co/YTqpk1cBZc

[Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10]

Rumours of some sort of U-turn coming on business rates…

It’s more important than ever to keep the pressure on.

[Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10]

My parliamentary motion on business rates has been supported by just six MPs.

Our open letter to Reeves for businesses to sign?

Six thousand.

That says an awful lot about the disconnect between people and their parliament.

[Sacha Lord @Sacha_Lord]

If the Business Rates U Turn is only on pubs, the rest of the sector will be up in arms!

It has to cover all Hospitality.

Restaurants, Hotels, cafes, Live Music venues etc…

[Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10]

Evening @RachelReevesMP - hundreds of small business owners are signing my open letter on business rates every hour. It will soon be thousands.

Without a change on rates, we will lose thousands of pubs and other businesses.

Thousands.

It is SO important that you listen.

[Adam Brooks AKA EssexPR 🇬🇧 @EssexPR]

Pubs will fail because of the below:

▪️Covid debts.

▪️Energy crisis debts.

▪️Aggressive Government taxes & NIC contributions hikes.

▪️Disproportionately high business rates compared to other businesses.

▪️Customers struggling with the cost of living.

[Sacha Lord @Sacha_Lord]

Another.

This is now happening every day in every town/city across the UK.

This was a family run business, local produce, local jobs.

@Keir_Starmer how can you sit by and allow your Chancellor to do this?

[GB News @GBNEWS]

‘Both Budgets have cost me an extra £40,000.’

Pub landlord Adam Brooks explains the impact of Labour’s tax hikes on the hospitality industry and why pubs are closing at a record rate.

[Sacha Lord @Sacha_Lord]

Gov't have now warned Hospitality that is we want any concessions, we shouldn't protest, as the farmers didn't and they got what they wanted.

Utter nonsense...farmers played it brilliantly and brought Whitehall to a standstill.

We need to keep applying the pressure.

[LBC @LBC]

'It's an absolute catastrophe and cannot be allowed to continue.'

Labour's plan to increase business rates is 'so serious' that @TomSwarbrick1 calls for a 'nationwide pub day'.

[Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10]

Business rates. The British people, and its MPs, do not understand the coming apocalypse. And it is going to be an apocalypse. I talk to pub owners, cafe owners, all types of small business owners. They are terrified and nobody is listening.

Real people. Family businesses. The sort of places that keep towns and villages alive.

They are running out of road, and the business rates change will be the end of the road for many.

They’ve absorbed blow after blow over the last few decades and kept going anyway. But this will be the end for many. A sad, bitter end.

Rising rents. Rising supplier costs. Rising insurance. Endless compliance. Paperwork that grows every year but adds absolutely zero value.

They dealt with all the lockdown bullshit.

Forced closures. Confusing rules. Constant U-turns. Damaging loans. ‘Following’ the science, remember?

Many got no proper support due to the structure of their businesses. They battled on.

People remortgaged homes, drained savings, worked unpaid - just to keep the doors intact so they could reopen when finally allowed.

When restrictions were lifted, it wasn’t normal. Customers poorer, costs stayed high, footfall patchy.

Then the energy costs blowing up after the Ukraine war. Still bleeding the business dry.

And now, on top of all of that, they’re staring down a business rates revaluation that could be the final straw. Not because their business is suddenly thriving or profits are surging, but because a formula has made some impossibly complicated recalculations.

For hospitality, there is no escape. A pub can’t go remote. A cafe can’t move to a warehouse.
They have to be there. In the town, paying extortionate business rates.

This, of course, is all after higher operating costs from the first Reeves budget. NI changes were punishing for these businesses. Absolutely punishing.

We inflict such brutal costs on high street businesses, then we’re confused when so many of our town centres are becoming desolate shitholes? Not that difficult to figure out, is it?

And now this. The rates increase. For small pubs, it’s adding tens of thousands of pounds to the bill every year. THEY WILL GO BUST.

There is no way to pay it and stay viable. It’s impossible. I’d like to see Reeves try. Then she’d really start crying.

I am doing what I can in Westminster. Questions asked, motion tabled - with just three MPs supporting so far.

James McMurdock, Gavin Williamson and Peter Bedford. I am going to lobby for more support, and hopefully we can get Government to listen.

We’ve seen with the farming tax changes can be made if enough noise is made, but sadly I’m just not seeing anywhere near that same level of anger. And we need anger for them to notice.

This could be the end of the British pub.

That is not an exaggeration, and it’s not just pubs - it’s entire industries.

So get angry. Ask your MP to sign the motion.

I am doing what I can in Westminster.

It HAS to change.

[Sacha Lord @Sacha_Lord]

I’d like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, but sadly for Hospitality I think it’ll be anything but happy.

As the busy period comes to an end and the extra taxes kick in, we will now witness a raft of closures and job losses.

We have to come together as a sector and strongly urge a U turn.

[Sacha Lord @Sacha_Lord]

Fair play to the farmers…a great campaign.

I strongly urge @RachelReevesMP to re look at Business Rates and stick to her promise of helping pubs, restaurants, hotels etc…if not, she will be remembered as The Chancellor who called last orders on Hospitality.

[W.daler @Wdaler1]

@Mr_unknown23_ @eyupmush @Rajiv1841 If my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike…..

[W.daler @Wdaler1]

@doineed2dothis @Rajiv1841 Please explain your reasoning 🤣🤣🤣

[Rajiv @Rajiv1841]

Joe Root scored 13,662 runs in his career & still used to get called home bully!!

Joe Root avg outside England:
🇿🇦 - 50.21,
🇳🇿 - 50.30,
🇱🇰 - 65.50,
🇮🇳 - 45.42,
🇦🇪 - 57.40,
WI - 51.50,
🇦🇺 - 37.25
🇵🇰 - 47.70

- Dominated entire world, greatest after Sachin!

[Matt Gubba @MattGubba]

Nobody wants to say it out loud, but here it is:

Britain has no path to growth until the tax burden is reversed.

2026 is shaping up to be a lost year.

Corporation tax at 25%.
Dividend tax rising again.
Frozen thresholds dragging millions into higher bands.
Business rates exploding.
Capital gains punishments that kill investment.
A Budget built around squeezing the productive to fund the dependent.

Then we wonder why investment is collapsing, why founders are leaving, why small businesses are dying, and why the economy is flatlining.

This is not a mystery.

You cannot tax your way to prosperity.
You cannot build growth by punishing the people who create it.
You cannot have innovation in a climate where taking risks feels like a trap.

Britain is not running out of talent.
It is running out of incentives to stay and build.

If the government wants a future with jobs, investment, and entrepreneurship, it must stop treating success as a revenue source and start treating it as a national asset.

Reverse the tax burden.
Unlock growth.
Or accept that Britain is heading for another decade of decline.

There is no third option.