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Oct. 7, 2020 - David Icke
29:28
Gareth Icke's Big Mouth Talks To Bar Owner Nick Robinson About The Damage Of The 10pm Curfew
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Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome to GaroFox's Big Mouth.
This usually goes live on Iconic, but we're putting this one out to all platforms because we think that it's pretty important that people see it.
I'm joined today by an old school friend, Nick, who contacted me this week to talk about the government lockdown and curfew and just how that's affecting the hospitality industry, bars, restaurants and stuff like that.
It's great to talk to you, Nick, but it would be nice if it was under better circumstances.
But if you could tell us just how it's all affecting you personally.
Yeah, of course. So, we have been Working on a new beautiful site that you can see a bit of it behind me for the last four months.
Spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds getting it all ready for a launch date that was due to be the 19th of October.
We have 50 members of staff all ready to go due to start training this Monday just gone on a two-week intensive training course ready for the launch.
And then since the 10pm curfew come in, it just made it completely and utterly unviable for us to do it.
We've got another site down in Winchester, as you know, I think you've been down there.
Yeah, it's great. And I'm just massively concerned.
You know, we've gone from a few months ago thinking that we've got a fantastic future.
We've created an amazing brand, something truly different, really innovative.
So all of a sudden, We're concerned about survival.
We're just one site. I had to make 50 phone calls last week.
I'll be completely honest with you, I got halfway down the list and I was so fed up.
I asked a couple of my other guys to make the remainder of the phone calls.
But we had to phone each and every one of them and tell them that purely because of the 10pm curfew, that there is currently not a job there for them.
I know one or two have picked up a couple of drive-in delivery jobs, but the vast majority, I've got absolutely no doubt, I know most of them have all gone on to benefits.
And this is solely because of the 10pm curfew.
Appreciate other rules that have come in and we've all worked around them and it did affect business.
We've sort of done moves and we've changed the business so we've managed to still be viable even with the extra social distancing and the other measures that are in place.
But that really wasn't a problem and that weren't going to affect our opening date here at all.
But the 10pm curfew is insanity to be completely honest with you.
We've had relatively similar upbringings.
Do you know what I mean? I'd say we're the same as 99.9% of the population.
If anyone had come to me or anybody that I know and said, what do you think if we're going to bring this 10pm curfew in, what do you think the outcome's going to be?
We could have told them. At 10 o'clock there's going to be parties in the streets.
You're going to have everyone trying to cram onto a tube.
In the centre of London at the same time, you know, I saw a video, one guy turns up with a guitar and you've got a little mini festival in Leicester Square at 10.15pm.
It's insanity. Yeah, I agree.
It was obvious. I mean, obviously I don't even work in the industry or anything like that, but you're right, it was obvious to me.
I looked at it like... I'm a Derby County fan, as you know.
So when Derby would play Forest, the police, to stop fighting or whatever, would move the kickoff to 12pm, midday.
Well, then everyone just goes to the pub at 7 in the morning, gets drunk, and then they stumble out of the ground at 3, 4 in the afternoon, into town, into families of shoppers.
And I'm not a policeman, and I'm going, well, that's a really bad idea.
And it's exactly the same with this.
It was always going to happen, every time.
To me, it shows the massive disparity between us and the general population and the people that are making these rules and coming up with it.
They haven't had a normal upbringing.
They couldn't have done. They couldn't have had a similar upbringing to anyone that I know or anyone that we grew up with because we'd have known exactly what was going to happen as soon as the announcement was made.
So, to me, it's just absolute insanity.
But that's it. It's career politicians that have never worked a day in their lives.
They've never lived in the real world.
And actually, what underlined that was the fact that the 10pm curfew came in, which has obviously done what it's done to your business and to countless others, yet the bars at Parliament were allowed to stay open later.
Can you imagine?
I can just imagine them sitting up there overlooking the Thames and the rest of London with their old-fashioned at about half past ten at night, just watching all the lights flicking off one at a time.
And then everyone absolutely devastated, struggling to survive, but it doesn't make a blind bit of difference to them.
You know, the fact that they didn't even think that that would be a problem, just it's insane.
Yeah, exactly.
So go back to March.
How was it for you?
Because I was actually in Incognito in Winchester in February.
So obviously March has come along.
What's that done to that business?
Well, obviously we shut down the same as everyone else.
We had no choice.
The furlough scheme It was a massive help.
It helped us keep the team together.
We negotiated with our landlord down in Winchester, who's been pretty good and hasn't demanded the rent whilst we were shut.
I mean, they still want it. It's been deferred, so it's not like there was a negotiation on any sort of rent-free period.
And I'll be honest, I'm one of the fortunate ones.
There's so many horror stories out there.
Fantastic Bar, Milk and Honey, shut down recently because the landlords have been I'm willing to negotiate or help out.
So we shut down.
We just mothballed everything.
We furloughed all the staff.
And it wasn't too bad.
And for me, at that time, when that first lockdown come in, we accepted it.
For me, we didn't know how bad this virus was going to be.
You're hearing all these horror stories.
And you kind of...
Initially you go along with it because it sounds like potentially the best thing to do and there's great financial support there in terms of the furlough scheme that Rishi put in place.
So it kind of secured your future anyway and it was just a matter of time.
But then as time goes on and You realise, you know, I don't think everything is what it seems.
You know, I think anyone with two brain cells to rub together, if they turn the BBC off or mainstream media and do a little bit of their own research, realises that absolutely none of it adds up.
None of the figures add up.
None of the restrictions are really warranted.
Yeah, it kind of, it opens your mind a little bit and you start getting a little bit, rather than stress rate, you start getting a little bit more resentful, a little bit angry about it, really, that the pressure you're being put under unnecessarily, I think.
So we reopened July the 4th.
I had concerns, as I imagine everybody did in the industry.
We had to, we lost some seats, reduced the capacity, had to put some extra measures in place, of course, but If I'm completely honest with you, it hasn't been too bad.
We opened up, we was, although we had a lower capacity, we were still pretty much doing the same sort of money as we were doing pre-lockdown.
So, in terms of that, I absolutely couldn't have asked for any more.
Which then gave us the confidence to continue with this project.
You've got Rishi Sunak doing the Help Out to Eat Out.
Or eat out the help out throughout August, which was a fantastic success for loads of hospitality businesses.
So you think, you know, it really gives you the confidence to throw a lot of money at something and try and build on what you've already done.
Take on a huge amount of staff.
Only for this, this 10pm curfew to come in.
And then that, since that came in, was it 10 days ago or something like that now?
We're 40% down in Winchester.
So unfortunately there's a couple of Part-time staff that we've had to lose there.
As long as the figures stay roughly what they are, I've got no concerns for Winchester for the long-term viability of it.
I think we'd be absolutely fine.
But I'll be honest, I'm one of the lucky ones.
There's some real horror stories out there.
I was chatting to some guys from the Gibson yesterday in London.
Fantastic little cocktail bar, late night, premium venue.
They're 75% down.
You've only got to look at other cocktail bars, social media.
They're all advertising what they are down.
Night Jars down 50%.
And these are in the city.
They're 50% down on an already...
Dramatically reduced turnover since the city's been in lockdown and people not going back to work and there's no tourism and everything else.
So it really is dire out there for hospitality.
And I think if this 10pm curfew isn't reversed or tweaked to a way that makes it worthwhile for businesses to stay open or makes it possible to stay open, I think you're going to see millions more Redundancies and lost jobs, unnecessarily. I mean, there's already going to be, as soon as the furlough scheme ends, I think there's going to be a bloodbath out there, really.
Oh, yeah. But the European curfew is just going to make it infinitely worse, and it's completely unnecessary.
Yeah, and the thing about the curfew thing that gets me is that those impositions were brought in when Valence and Witte said, was it by the 28th or 27th of October, that it would be about 50,000 cases a day.
So the government brought in the 10pm curfew, they shut down more cities, stuff like that, places like Liverpool.
And then, the day after, Valance talks to the BBC and he says, oh, that wasn't a prediction, we just knew it would get headlines.
And you're like, okay, well then let's get rid of the curfew then.
Do you know what I mean? You said it's not curfew.
And you've got Matt Hancock turning around and saying that 50% of all transmissions, we know that 50% of all transmissions are done in hospitality, which is a complete and utter lie.
I mean, Public Health England's latest figures that I've seen show that only 4% of transmissions were in a hospitality space.
82% was in the workplace, schools and care homes.
And I'm not saying for a second that any of them should be shut down, but it just shows that hospitality is absolutely being made to be a scapegoat and a patsy For some of the mistakes and the incompetence, really, of the government.
I mean, the people that make these policies, Matt Hancock, he should get arrested, really, by the end of it.
I agree completely.
They just don't want people having fun.
It seems that that's the thing, like, everything that's taken away.
Like, you can go to work, you know, bugger off to work and bugger off to school, but when it comes to going out, socialising, going to watch sport or anything, it's like, no, no, we can't have you been doing that.
I mean, I saw...
Sorry, go on.
No, I was just going to say, the interview yesterday with ITV, I mean, they changed the headline in the end because people kicked off, but he still said it, which was the fact that maybe people in the arts, so like musicians and poets and artists and performers, should think about a new career path.
It's like, what?
What an outrageous statement.
What an unbelievably outrageous statement to make.
You know, it's all of the nice things in life, isn't it?
It just seems to be that, that they're...
Drilling down on and trying to destroy it.
I couldn't believe it when I read it.
Three people actually sent it to me, screenshots in text.
At the beginning, I'll be honest with you, I thought...
I thought he was doing a fantastic job and I thought he was doing all he could when he brought in that furlough scheme.
I don't necessarily think it was dealt with in the right way.
I mean, when Boris Johnson in March turned around and said, we're keeping pubs open, but telling everyone, but we don't want anyone to go to them.
And then all of a sudden, everyone's bookings fell through the floor.
We took no money, but still had to pay all his wages.
And it was only a few days later that Rishi Sunak then come out and announced the furlough scheme.
You know, you'd think that they would have come together and Don't worry, we're going to look after you.
And they would have saved a huge amount of anxiety for millions of people.
But I did think initially, that was a good move with a furlough scheme.
It's been invaluable to millions of people and hundreds of thousands of businesses.
But the latest...
Stuff that he's been coming out with, really, does absolutely no help whatsoever.
And it pretty much cements in my mind that we're on our own.
Oh, 100%.
100%.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, I mean, it works out with this winter plan that he's got in place.
I mean, if you can't afford to To keep your staff on, how can you afford for them to stay at home?
How can you afford to pay for 55% of their time and only receive 33% of your employees' time?
If you've got two full-time members of staff and you've only got enough hours for one full-time member of staff, it's cheaper to make one redundant than to put them both on part-time and run them through that scheme.
So it really seems like they're trying to look to Joe Public that they're doing the right thing, but really...
The people that have got to live with it and pay the bill is no different and we're being made to look the scapegoat once again.
So how are you looking now?
Because I'm assuming, you know, takings and stuff go up over Christmas and New Year, which, you know, that's cancelled.
So what are you...
How are things now? Obviously with Kingston, obviously behind you.
It looks amazing, mate, to be honest, that place.
It's such a beautiful venue.
Yeah, it's incredible. And obviously the whole thing was built around social distancing and making sure that we comply to all the measures.
I mean, we are fortunate. Our business model is table service anyway.
We're reservations anyway.
You know, we've got door people on the door that opens the door for you, so you don't even have to touch the door handle from the minute you get here.
You know, there's hospitality in general.
It's one of the safest places that you can go.
You know, we are constantly cleaning and we've got rules and regulations that we have to constantly meet.
So we're ready to adapt to these sort of things.
So it's not really a big problem for us.
So, I mean, thankfully our business model does suit the other restrictions that are in place.
But in terms of here, I don't know.
And I really don't know when we're open.
I mean, I am very, very fortunate that we haven't opened already because if we had opened four weeks ago and then this 10pm curfew come in, then we could be in serious trouble because we would have 50 members of staff on contracts, both part-time and full-time.
Our wage bill here would be between £15,000 and £20,000 a week.
And without the ability to take the money, we could have easily gone out of business within three to six months.
But fortunately, we hadn't yet opened.
And we've got a pretty decent landlord here who we've negotiated with.
So for me, personally, I think we'll be okay.
I mean, this can stay shut for some time until the government come to their senses and we can reopen.
But it's not about me.
You know, we are one site.
There's 50 members of this team that now haven't got a job.
There's not too many hospitality jobs out there, that's for sure.
And this is one site.
You know, there's tens of thousands of businesses who are already operating, who have got massive fixed costs and salaries and obligations, and they're not going to be able to do it.
No. I agree.
Yeah. I mean, in my village, there's three pubs in my village.
There's two now, because one's gone already.
That's boarded up and gone.
And I'll be honest, if they bring in another lockdown, which they keep talking about, then maybe one of the other two might survive, I think.
But the other one definitely wouldn't.
So that would be two thirds of the pubs in my village gone.
And that would be, like you said, that's just one site.
You know, you times that by every village and town and city in the country and you're talking...
I think, is it something like 27% of the British workforce works in hospitality?
I mean... Yeah, something like that.
Yeah, it's millions. I mean, the latest survey done by Big Hospitality, they said that if the 10pm curfew is in for six months, one third of the people that they surveyed wouldn't survive.
And these are the businesses that...
Think they can survive or have said that they can survive the restrictions that are already in.
I mean, me and my wife, we went to Covent Garden and spent a couple of days in London a little while ago.
Honestly, it brought tears to your eye. It's horrendous walking around there and looking at all of these fantastic businesses, boarded up, piles of letters through the door, you know, and you think, are these ever, ever going to open again?
And I can't see it. No, it's the same the world over as well.
They say 40% of bars in New York are done, permanently done.
You know, this is just, yeah, worldwide.
I heard on the radio today that people, they're going to the cinema to show live streams of football matches.
So where's the sense in that?
You can go to the cinema to watch a football match inside a closed space, but you can't go to a football match.
Yeah, where you're in the open air, in the fresh air.
Yeah, it's insane.
So none of it makes sense.
And I think the more and more people you talk to, even the ones that were completely behind the government, turn on the telly, believe everything that they listen to, even them now, they're starting to turn.
I think people really are waking up to it.
And people are getting angry with it, really.
You know? Yeah. I mean...
The amount of people, I guarantee that suicides and things like that have gone up dramatically, you know, with people losing their businesses, need ability to feed their families.
So the cure absolutely is worse than disease.
I'm not saying that it doesn't exist.
I know everyone's got their own views on it, but the restrictions that they're putting in place and the damage they're doing to this economy far outweighs the damage I believe that You know, the disease would do.
And I think we should still protect the vulnerable and protect the elderly.
But I do think the economy needs to be able to survive.
And we need to, you know, it's too important, really.
The damage is going to last generations.
Well, that's it. I said that when I spoke to The Times, which I should have never done.
But when I spoke to them and I said to them that I know more people that have killed themselves than have got the virus.
And, you know, and he obviously didn't put it in there because they were never going to because it doesn't work with the narrative.
But that's the case. And that's just going to go through the roof as well.
Like you say, you know, people are just so fed up.
I mean, you're a bit more like me.
You get angry. But some people don't get angry.
They just despair, you know, and give up.
And when you give up, it's game over.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I mean, exactly the same as me.
I don't know personally.
I mean, obviously a lot of people do, but I don't know one single person that has had a positive test result.
I know plenty of people that say they think they've had it or, you know, I probably think I've had it.
But I know two people...
That took their own life. I was talking to a powder coater who'd done a bit of work for me.
He had exactly the same conversation with him and he said, Nick, I know five women who took their own life during lockdown.
He said, no, I don't know one person with a positive test just like you.
You know, and these people, they're leaving children behind.
They're young families that this is happening to.
So without a shadow of a doubt in my mind, the cure Is worse than a disease.
It's only going to get worse.
They're pulling back the financial support.
I think they're pushing hospitality as far as they possibly can without the need to give
any extra funding. So even if they turn around and said to everyone, right, you got to shut
down for two weeks, we're going to do this circuit breaker lockdown or whatever they've
been calling it. In their mind, it probably justifies, but it's only two weeks. We won't
need to give them any more support. So I feel like they're kind of pushing it as far as
they possibly can without that far that they feel the need that they've got to give that
that little bit more financial support.
I mean, there's billions and billions outstanding to landlords.
You know, all of this stuff's got to be worked out.
And if businesses can't operate at their normal licensing hours, even with the current other restrictions, they've got absolutely no possible chance.
No, exactly. You're right about the amount of money.
I was thinking that the other day. I was listening to a thing on the radio and they were saying, it was a government ad, and they were saying, you know, if you test positive, you know, you get a big fine if you don't isolate.
So you have to stay in your house, obviously, for two weeks.
And the government's going to give you 500 quid.
Now I was thinking, right, okay, so if you're not earning a lot of money and, you know, you've got a small bedsit or a flat or whatever, then okay, 500 quid's 500 quid.
But... If you live in the centre of London and your mortgage is like, God knows what, and you can't go to work for two weeks, but it's 500 quid.
It's like, well, that's not going to even cover the rent or even a quarter of the rent if you're, you know, in certain places.
No, no, definitely.
So it's, and I do think, I think the wet-led venues and the late, obviously the late night hospitality has really, really been affected.
I mean, I don't know what nightclubs are going to do.
Really, really are in big trouble.
And I do feel like any of the majority of the support has also been lent towards restaurants rather than the wet lead venues.
So like your VAT reduction is all really geared towards restaurants.
There's no real help for wet lead cocktail bars or premium sort of wet lead places.
I do understand why they wouldn't necessarily give big VAT cuts to pubs and wet led places because all you're going to do then is have all the other political parties saying that you're encouraging binge drinking and You'll have all the newspapers taking photos of people partying in the streets and it's all down to the VAT cut and stuff like that.
So I know they're in an awkward position, but they can't just abandon everybody and now say that these jobs are not viable, go and retrain.
I mean, if we go back to what he said yesterday, it's completely outrageous and I think they've kind of made their mind up that you're on your own from now on.
Yeah, this is, well, this is it.
I think it's like, this is the new normal.
They were saying the new normal back in March.
Like they just coined that phrase immediately.
You know, it was a three week lockdown just to flatten the curve, just to flatten the curve.
That was what, nearly seven months ago.
And they're now saying that it's these, these, these things are in place for another six months.
You're like, Jesus wept.
Like, what the hell, man? Like, you can't enjoy anything.
You can't do anything. No, no, definitely.
And like you said, that's all it was, wasn't it?
We've got to flatten the curve and protect the NHS. And this is what we was sold at the beginning of it.
So everyone was more than happy to comply.
Then we built all the nightingales.
And now cases are They're rising, but they're testing, you know, you listen to Piers Morgan and the stuff he says, and it's the end of the world.
But what he doesn't say is that they're testing 20 times more people now than they was back in April.
So, of course, you test more people, you're going to get more positive test results, aren't you?
Sorry, I lost my friend.
No, no, no. That's exactly it.
And also, they never mention how many of those are in hospital, how many of those are dying.
And the one that got me was when we had a day in August where there wasn't a death.
There wasn't a single death attributed to COVID. And it didn't even make the news.
Like, someone pointed it out because they'd seen it on the Office of National Statistics, so you went looking for it.
And I'm thinking, if we live in a normal place where people are genuine, That's front page news.
Get in.
That's amazing. No one's died.
Right. This is great.
Let's get our lives back.
But they don't want to tell you that. And now, instead of having a daily hospitalised count or a daily death count, it's a cases count because it's easier, isn't it?
If you're testing more people, you're going to get more results.
And all of a sudden, it's not about protecting the NHS. It's about we've got to suppress the virus until the vaccine comes along.
So, you know, they keep changing the goalposts and all of a sudden it's death between in 28 days.
So it's kind of like spreading a wider net to catch as many figures as you possibly can.
So I think, yeah, I think people are waking up to it and I think they're really getting fed up with it.
I hope so, mate. I hope so.
I think also when furlough ends, like you mentioned earlier, that's going to be a massive wake-up call for people.
And also, the more stuff you see, like I saw an article today that come out of a government briefing in Australia where they're saying that there won't be any long-distance travel for Australians until 2022.
And you're like, what?
So if they're doing it there, they'll do it here.
So all of a sudden you're going to tell people you can't go abroad for another two years.
People aren't going to... Well, you like to think people aren't going to have it.
Yeah, well, there's talk of that, isn't there?
I mean, even mainstream media are talking about vaccine passports and stuff like that.
I've got absolutely no doubt that that will probably come in.
And then what do you do? You know, what do people do?
Well, that's it. You just hope if there's enough people say no to it.
You know, that makes a difference.
He said it, didn't he, Hancock?
We won't make it mandatory as long as enough people download the app.
We won't make it mandatory. Yeah, it's mandatory then.
They do love their use of language.
They're the same with the vaccines and stuff.
They're saying, you know, we won't make it mandatory to have vaccines, but it will mean that you can't do X, Y and Z. So, well, it's mandatory then, because if people can't go out, they can't go to work, they can't live.
You're saying have it or don't live.
That, in anyone's definition, is mandatory.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, when you read in the newspapers and you hear that Dr Whitty's got £600,000 worth of shares in one of the companies that's developing a vaccine and that Hancock only found out about it in the newspaper, in his own words, he only found out about it in the newspaper.
You think, has this not disclosed prior to being put into the position that you're in?
You know, I mean, the stock markets are crazy as it is at the minute.
I mean, there's nothing to say that that company could...
Triple, 5X, their stock value, if they are the ones that come up with a vaccine and get it.
And Whitty's in line for millions, if it does.
So you think, as there's no conflict of interest, how can this not be brought to light?
How can Matt Hancock only find out about this in a newspaper seven months in to everything that's going on?
It's insane. Yeah, exactly.
Well, they're lying, basically. That's the long and short of it, isn't it?
Another thing I think as well, I'd love to know, and I've tried to find, but I've not been able to find enough concrete stuff, but I'd love to know who'd invested in PPE in the last 18 months, maybe two years.
Because I think you'd see some names pop up, you know, you'd think, oh, hang on, that's a bit interesting.
Because it just seems like this whole thing was, you know, long, long planned and long rehearsed.
And yeah, that's just one of those things I think.
I'd love to know who's making money out of that.
I think there's a lot out there that We'll probably never know.
I'll be honest, right this moment in time, my biggest concern is hospitality and trying to save as many jobs as I can for our lot and just getting the word out there, really.
Then how devastating it is for the industry.
I appreciate you talking to us, Nick.
Like I say, I wish it was a nicer chat.
No, definitely. We'll catch up when times are better.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, next time I'm down south, I'll have to come into Winchester.
Because Gemma, my wife, just loved it.
Absolutely loved it there. So we'll come and have some drinks.
And then Kingston.
Kingston, when it's up and running, mate.
I'll let you know. Yeah, please do.
Yeah, we'll do, definitely.
Cheers, Nick. I appreciate it, mate.
And I'll speak to you soon.
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