2 days ago
Boomers, your country needs you — go have a night on the town
Nominations, please, for Scotland's minister for cocktails and clubs. According to NTIA — the Night Time Industries Association Scotland (who knew?) — the night-time economy requires a lifeline. Among its 31 recommendations for injecting some spark into proceedings is the creation of a dedicated minister.
The obvious choice is Angus McNeil, who has shown remarkable stamina in this field. In 2005, after a ceilidh, the SNP MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar was discovered drunk in a hotel room with two girls aged 17 and 18 and a piper passed out in the corner, while his pregnant (now ex) wife was in hospital. The comedian Frankie Boyle called it 'the most Scottish sex scandal ever'.
When the NTIA report came out, my first thought was 'what night-time economy'? I appreciate that I may not be the target audience for a Glasgow rave, but since Covid the hospitality industry has felt decidedly inhospitable. Prices have risen in inverse proportion to shrinking serving sizes, kitchens are open for less time than it takes to concoct a casserole, and 9.30pm is the new midnight.
When I met up with two friends last week in a university town, the local Italian restaurant was busy at 7.30 pm. By 9.15pm, when we were settling the bill, we were the only guests. It was clear from the waiters' pointed behaviour that we had outstayed our welcome by about half an hour.
Travelling in the Highlands last week, I came across numerous restaurant signs advertising opening hours as 6pm to 8pm. Eating out on holiday is one of life's pleasures — or should be. Expecting visitors to support the local economy seems a reasonable quid pro Merlot. Tourism should nourish the places it feeds on. But nobody is making it easy.
At two of our favourite restaurants in a busy west coast crowd-puller, it is not possible to book a table after 7.30pm, and even at that time, you risk playing menu roulette with what is still on offer.
Last Wednesday, we hit Plockton — the self-styled 'jewel of the Highlands' — just before 2pm. The beginning of August is arguably the apex of peak season in this beautiful part of the world. The town was its usual bustling self. But last orders for lunch had long gone.
We traipsed the length of the front looking for nothing more lavish than a bowl of soup or a toastie. It wasn't simply that everywhere had stopped serving by 2pm that surprised us but the incredulity of the restaurant staff that we expected to be able to buy a meal at such an ungodly hour.
I don't blame the restaurateurs, at least not entirely. Running a hospitality business has always been a passion project. But these days, the ratio of labour to love seems completely out of kilter. So many recent impediments have conspired to transform a traditionally difficult business with thin margins into a near-impossible enterprise with the most meagre of pickings. What is infuriating is that so many of the obstacles have been carelessly and unnecessarily created by the very people who should be building the economy.
Brexit has deprived the industry of a seasonal workforce. Poor transport infrastructure — from the ferry fiasco to an underfunded road network — has led holidaymakers to abandon plans to visit our more remote communities. The lack of facilities and the inability to manage demand at tourist magnets such as Skye and Edinburgh have caused frustration among locals and visitors. The new Scottish local authority licensing scheme has made small tourism businesses unprofitable.
Accommodation prices in Scotland have risen by 75 per cent since the pandemic. The UK's electricity bills are among the highest in Europe, and the costs of ingredients, including locally farmed or grown produce, have skyrocketed. The Scottish government's decision not to pass on to businesses Scotland's share of the £2.1 billion in business rates support announced by the UK government for the retail, leisure and hospitality industries is scandalous.
All this combined with Labour's £25 billion raid on business in the form of increased national insurance contributions means it is not surprising that so many hospitality businesses are struggling. Some 285 Scottish pubs have closed permanently since the pandemic. Landmark establishments, including Kora by Tom Kitchin and the Lookout by Gardener's Cottage in Edinburgh and the Shed nightclub in Glasgow, have recently shut up shop.
Add in the cost of living crisis, a public who have become more demanding and less accommodating, a surge in the use of weight-loss drugs — the antidote to indulgence and excess — and the fact that the average booking time in the UK is now 6.12pm as Gen Z prioritises rest and wellbeing over socialising, and you'd find more fun in your average nunnery.
The night-time economy and the hospitality industry are subsets of the general economy. They are also barometers — the first to go before a big economic downturn. Their struggles are all of our struggles. It's not only an economic loss; it's a social and cultural loss.
For most of us, many of our fondest memories involve late nights in great clubs, bars and restaurants. A nation that loses its night-time economy loses its joie de vivre.
If Boomers want to do something really useful for the younger generation, they should go out and party like it's 1999. Splash that pension cash on caviar. Order that bottle of Krug — hell, make it a magnum. Stay out till 3am and totter back a hot but happy mess. Your country needs you to raise the roof, dance till dawn and paint the town crimson.
