Last Call for the Local: Are Old Pubs the Solution to Modern Crises? (Oisín Rogers)

21:01I do because we really love it. But I know that when people walk out that door and they have a really good story to tell, then we're going to have footfall. And that's it. That's the secret to what we do. What's the formula?

21:13Amol Rajan:What's the formula? What have you done? What have you cracked that others haven't? We'll get into the Londonness of this before. Honestly, I think pubs are far more important than pints and scotch eggs. I think pubs are cultural institutions where people come in and then they have some time and they have value for that time in the place. And when they leave, they feel better and they go out with a story to tell. It's not like other retailers where when you go into, you know, the Levi's store, you go into Tesco or you go to Hamley's. You go in, you browse, you buy your thing, you put it in a bag and the value for what you've had is inside the bag.

21:53When you leave the restaurant or the pub, you don't have anything tangible. You don't have a bag. What you've got is up here and down here. And we like to think that that's a great value. And when you get that right and people do exactly what you just did there and tell the story of what happened to you, then that's our marketing and people keep coming back. And that's the secret of pubs.

22:14Amol Rajan:Do you think, if you're really honest, that there are some pubs that are disappearing because they do, and you say this is a great champion of pubs obviously but some pubs that are disappearing because frankly they're not able to give people the value for time that they need i think that's completely true and you know pubs don't close if they're viable and when they become unviable it's a sad thing that happens but there's another element there as well which is which i think we should we should look at which is the fact that lots of these great old pubs are in fantastic heritage buildings in wonderful locations.

22:52So you've always got the vultures looking around at these almost viable pubs thinking that would make a great McDonald's or that would make a great supermarket or that we could convert that into six flats or we could turn that into a corporate headquarters. And I think that's something which is unfair because while it might be viable, its value commercially as a pub is way less than its value commercially as an industrial unit or apartments or a change of use. And that might be something that could be tackled by the government to golden brick those famous places, those places that are centre of the community and make sure that doesn't happen because it happens a lot.

23:35Amol Rajan:Sounds like we're on the verge of hearing a radical idea. it why do you say that the commercial value would of say a beautiful i know grade two listed place in a beautiful town in the middle of the midlands why what are you saying about its commercial value that it would have greater commercial value if it wasn't a pub and therefore you've got a lot of pressure on the publicans to sell up well not necessarily the publican but the freeholder of the building yes of course because say for example you have a viable pub that makes 200 000 pounds a year profit in some cases the value of that business would be five times that amount so if it was an office no just to sell it as it is as a pub which gives it its value as a pub as a million pounds right right right so can you imagine that's on the corner of your favorite street in oxford and it's a beautiful victorian building with four floors and uh and accommodation above and it's in a premium spot.

24:33Anybody can look at that and go, I'm pretty sure I can get£5 million for that or£3 million or whatever the number is and that puts unfair stress on its viability as a pub. Do you see what I mean?

24:44Amol Rajan:That's so interesting. What could you do about that? Because you're saying golden when you said the government could golden brick it what can you do to protect that heritage? Well, you know listing them is one thing that can be done and there's lots of pubs that are listed which stops them from being viable as others. But I don't know what the government could do to change that, but I'm certain that there are ways. There's another thing called making a business an asset of community value, which I'm sure you've heard of where villages which are going to lose their pubs, they can apply for it to have a particular status as an asset of community value, which means it has to stay as a pub.

25:25But the process for that to happen is convoluted, complicated, and involves a lot of support from the community for that to happen.

25:32Amol Rajan:I think that should happen a lot easier. And when you're running a pub, you don't necessarily have a huge amount of time on your hands. You certainly don't. You've already got so much paperwork. It's the last thing you want to be doing. Well, you work seven days a week, anti-social hours and all the rest of it. It's so interesting what you said a moment ago about whether or not some pubs which, and you say this, I should be clear, as a great champion of pubs, some pubs which aren't viable will inevitably fall by the wayside. I just want to read you something that James May, former guest editor of the Today programme, former presenter of Top Gear and so on and so forth, said to LBC a few weeks ago.

26:02Amol Rajan:So he's a pub owner. He's a fan of the Today programme. And he said, and I quote, I, as in James May, get very conflicted about all the save the pub stuff that goes on. The honest truth is, if things need protecting, they're not doing themselves any favours. Pubs are not actually institutions. They're not historical monuments or any of that stuff. They are essentially businesses first and foremost. But beyond that, there are places that have to work. The pub will be saved by the pub. Nothing else. It would be nice if we could have lower rates and lower duties and so on. But that's not really the issue.

26:36Amol Rajan:The issue is the quality of pubs themselves. That was James May. Would you go along with that? I love James and I mostly agree with him. But I would disagree and say that most of the pubs that I love and that I go to are institutions. They are important to me. and they're equally important to those who feel like they are part of them. And, you know, if you're a regular in a pub, of which most pubs have dozens, if not hundreds, maybe thousands of regulars, then all of those regulars have a kind of a funny, memorable ownership of that. And I think that needs to be celebrated. And that should give it some heart and something that's not commercially measurable and something that should give it value outside of just being a commercial business.

27:21Amol Rajan:Is your sense that it's easier to make a pub viable in London or a big city compared to the country pub? You know, it changes. I remember after the pandemic, everybody said that, you know, big cities would be hollowed out in the middle and there'd be a donut around the edge where everybody would be working from home. So residential and pubs in areas of high chimney pots would do way better and the town centres would be, you know, annihilated. and weirdly the opposite seems to have happened. I can see central London pubs doing very well. I can see central Manchester pubs doing very well. Birmingham central pubs are doing very, very well.

28:00And I do think the good ones in residential areas are flying too but I think it's the smaller ones in residential areas and the ones in the countryside that tend to be the most challenging. Although there's always brilliant diamonds in the rough as well and I'll go back to my friends at the Rat Inn in Anik which is in the middle of nowhere and it's packed all the time. Where's that? It's up in Hexham, just outside Durham. Brilliant, brilliant place. It's one of those ones in the top 50 gastropropos. The Parker's Arms are up in the Ribble Valley. It literally takes four hours to get there from here.

28:34And every time I go up there, I see somebody I know who's come from London. You know, so it is possible to bring people down. You've got the one down in Sea Salter as well, the Sportsman. You know, once again, beautiful location, really hard to get to. But because it's great, people will go there and great pubs will always attract people.

28:52Amol Rajan:So, as you know, we do this Q &A episode, which goes out on Monday. It's called Your Radical Questions. And we punt for contributions from our listeners. And we got one that was so good and so informed and so detailed that I actually wanted to bring it forward into this conversation. It's from Dr. Lauren Leak. She's a quantitative data scientist at the University of Reading. And she has been looking into what causes pub closures. and she logged every pub closure from 2009 to 2022 and having done all that work she sent us this question have a listen to this i've been modeling what predicts pub closures across britain and you've got famously strong instincts about why pubs live or die but the strongest signals in my model were almost all things a landlord can't control such as the location and not the offer so my question is how much of the pub's fate is really in your hands and how How much is already decided by where it sits?

29:46Amol Rajan:Lauren, wow, that is deep. What a fantastic question. That's a really good question. Okay, Lauren is basically saying the strongest signals in her model about looking into how you predict whether or not a pub is going to close, there are almost always things a landlord can't control, such as the location and not the offer. So Lauren's question is how much of a pub's fate is really in your hands and how much is already decided by where it sits? I think Lauren is probably right. I think that when a pub is on the edge of viability, there's not much a great landlord would be able to do if he or she were to take it over.

30:24However, on the flip side, I think when a pub is viable, then there's an awful lot that a landlord can do to make it better. And that's all, from my point of view, about making sure that people have a good time and they talk about it and they come back. It's all about footfall.

30:41Amol Rajan:So if Lauren's right that the fate of a pub to some degree is decided by where it sits, just to spell it out, what is a bad place to sit? Where do you not want to be? Is it based in the middle of nowhere? Usually, yes, because pubs that do survive in the middle of nowhere do it because they have reputation and they've been there a long time and they've got great value and they become destinations worth going to. I think when that stops, to turn that around is very, very difficult. I would love to see Lauren's data, though. I think this is a very, very interesting study. Well, Ashin, we have the best researchers and producers in the business.

31:13Amol Rajan:And they tell me in this brief who Lauren is. So Lauren is Dr. Lauren Leak, quantitative data scientist at the University of Reading, who logged every pub closure. This is so interesting. Logged every pub closure from 2009 to 2022. And during that period, Britain went from having 54 ,000 pubs to 40 ,000. And she worked this out by number crunching the number of closed businesses on companies house with a SIC code, which is pubs and bars, SIC code 56302. This is a great brief. She's looked at the UK Business Register data to model the survival risk of every pub in Britain. And she disagrees the decline is because people stop going.

31:47Amol Rajan:The bigger culprits for her are policy, taxes on beer, the 2017 business rates evaluation, COVID. We haven't even talked about COVID. It's COVID a huge thing. And the 2022 energy crisis. And her conclusion is that pubs don't die because of what's inside them, but because of what's outside of them. Lauren thinks that London's success quote unquote when it comes to pubs is an illusion it's more to do with ownership than anything a landlord has done in London the land that pubs sit on is valuable so if someone closes it it can be easily turned into a bar or tap room in Burnley for instance the land isn't worth nearly as much so it makes more sense to sell up and turn into flats Dr Lauren Leak that's one of the best contributions to a radical episode I've ever come across and Lauren also mentions the 22 energy crisis which obviously had a huge devastating inflation impact but Covid What did COVID do for Britain's pubs?

32:34Well, it was a huge shock. I think it was very, very difficult. The government actually under Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak really helped us with the furlough and the COVID loans. I think some pub companies came out a lot weaker, some came out a lot stronger. I think there was quite a reckoning. But I like to think it's in the past now because it was that traumatic for us that I've put it behind us. and happily so.

33:12Amol Rajan:I really hope you're enjoying this conversation with Oshin Rogers. Please don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on BBC Sounds and that way you won't miss future episodes. If you do subscribe, make sure you've got your push notifications turned on and that way you will get an alert whenever we publish a new episode. Right, back to Oshin Rogers.

33:34Amol Rajan:Can you do anything? And should you try to do anything? Or how do you respond to the fact that younger people, the evidence shows, are drinking less? Drink Aware reported in October 2025 the proportion of UK drinkers choosing no and low alcohol drinks to moderate consumption had risen from 18 % in 2018 to 31 % in 2025, with half of young adults choosing no or low alcohol options. Alcohol Change UK says 26 % of 16 to 24-year-olds reported not drinking alcohol in the previous 12 months. Blimey, that's a lot, isn't it? I mean, they really aren't drinking. That's up from 19 % in 2011. I mean, there is a cultural move amongst young people towards drinking less.

34:16Amol Rajan:And I have to say, I remember a few years ago when 0 % beer was kind of taken off. I thought, this is mad. Yeah, I agree. What do you mean beer without beer? I mean, I was like, this is absolutely bonkers. I always think of Dragon's Den test, where you'd go in and say, guys, I've got this great idea. It's going to be called whatever the brand name is. And it's going to be beer, but it's going to be 0%. I thought the dragons would turn around and go, what are you talking about? And yet it seems to be kicking off. It seems to be working. How should pubs respond to that? Well, I think we sell really good quality zero and low alcohol beers and, you know, give it as an option.

34:52But, you know, I think anecdotally going out, yes, of course, young people are drinking less. But I also think that when they do drink, they're drinking more carefully and they're choosing where to go. In a discerning way. Yeah, and they will decide where they're going and it's not quite as spontaneous. They'll think about going to a really great place and spending a great night out with their friends. And I still see, you know, 18, 19, 20, 23-year-olds, 25-year-olds going out and having a brilliant time with their friends and really enjoying the pub. And I think that's really, really great. I hope that the decline in actual consumption is what they're drinking at home and what they're drinking more casually.

35:31And, you know, I think that the pub has still got a great future and people still come and have a couple of pints. And, you know, I think people are moving away from strong spirits when they come to the pub. We're seeing the number of pints really increase. We don't sell any shots at all. And, you know, obviously wine consumption is really, really solid. But, you know, anecdotally, looking around the pubs, I think there's still loads of young people who are really, really enjoying the idea of it, the culture of it. And the experience of being in a wonderful place.

36:01Amol Rajan:And I know it must vary enormously by pub, including by location and all the rest of it. But broadly speaking, do pubs make their best margins on booze or food? I mean, does that just vary according to the pub enormously? It does. And to be honest with you, there's probably not a huge amount of difference. If you've got a really successful wet pub, in other words, you don't sell much food at all. the great advantage is that you've got lower staff costs because you don't have to have the chefs but of course the percentage margin for food can be higher or can be lower it depends on the location and it also depends on how much people are paying for their stock so it's a complicated question but I'll always go back to successful pubs are the ones that are full of people and another interesting thing about pubs is that busy pubs tend to get busier and pubs that are quiet tend to get quieter so you can almost feel it if it's on this on the slide and you know if you go into a pub that's quiet you're much less likely to go back than if you go into one that's vibrant and busy busy and full of happiness and life and you feel that energy of of being in a in a communal place with other three-dimensional people and it's a complete difference to being in a two-dimensional world which is what where a lot of people are spending their time okay i'm going to ask you for the sort of business advice that were you not a very kind generous guest and radical but charging someone You could really charge a huge amount of money for this.

37:26Amol Rajan:Let's do this anyway. Free business advice. Go on. There's a hypothetical radical listener. I'm going to call her Sheila. Sheila is, I don't know, 42. She's worked in PR for a few years, not really feeling very satisfied about it. Sheila lives in a suburban town. It's a commuter town. It's in Surrey. Pretty busy, not a village, pretty busy commuter town. Lots of people run into London. Sheila spots, there's a pub to be bought. and she was thinking it's a big gamble i hear pubs are closing very fast but you know what i grew up going to pubs i love pubs and i'd love to look you know this is a passion project of mine by the way that's how a huge number of people get into pubs they think it's a passion project mine and she's husband mark is a bit like well i'm not so sure but if you want i could work longer hours at the old recruitment firm but if you want to do this my suite go for it what does she need to think about she needs to first of all think about whether or not how big a factor food is yeah she's thinking about how to keep her um costs low what does she need to do to begin with to make sure she's got a pub that's absolutely even?

38:25She needs to make sure that she's going to be there at least six days a week for the next year and a half.

38:31Amol Rajan:Herself? Herself. She needs to make sure that she's able to surround herself with people who really believe what she's going to believe, who are going to work alongside her. She needs to make sure that she has enough investment to make sure that the environment within and outside the pub feels comfortable, safe, clean, happy, welcome, well looked after. So we're talking tens of thousands of pounds doing up this pub to make sure it feels, you would come in there and it looks classy. It's got to look and feel cared for. And it's got to look and feel that it's a wonderful space that you want to see the inside of.

39:08Basically, what she needs to do is to create a world that everybody wants to see the inside of, because otherwise you just look like everybody else.

39:15Amol Rajan:She's got to think about who she hires. One thing that she's got to think of maybe, which you wouldn't have had to in the 1990s, but you've now, if I may say, become something of a master of, is social content. And it's amazing. A Sheen Rogers is this kind of giant of Instagram, right? You're this, oh, come on. Come on. You've got a pretty hot social media game. And you do interviews. You do lots of clips. You have one of, you have a, I don't know if you've got a team doing it, but you have people walking into the temperature. show how important and how exciting is it that if you've got a business these days and it's a bricks and mortar business which a pub necessarily is you can use social media to create a buzz i don't want to look i just say this because i don't want to get in trouble for people saying i'm being too nice but you know there's a very particular thing which is that the devonshire you've got a very very very world famous guinness and you get people who are on tiktok and elsewhere coming from around the world to taste your guinness which is a particular thing that's all i'll say about it how important is it for sheila or anyone who runs a pub who's listening to this or believes in pubs to try and create, let's just use the word, viral moments around the produce that they sell?

40:19I really think that you shouldn't think about that at all. Really? I think what you need to think about it.

40:25Amol Rajan:You think about it, don't you? I don't really, to be honest with you, Amol. What we think about is being good in the first place. Ah. We focus everything on making the simple things look super simple and making the consistency amazing. You mentioned that product in the glass. we're absolutely besotted and fastidious about every pint, looking the same, tasting the same, being the right temperature. We're the same with the lagers. We're the same with the wine. We're the same with the sparkling wine. We're the same with the steak. We're the same with the steak knife. We're the same with the wine glass.

40:59We're the same with how we present the cooking over the coals. We're the same about the way every table is presented. And we know that if we get the details really right, then people will photograph it and that will go out. We don't actually do that at all. What we do, if you think about what we do at Devonshire, we don't actually post very much at all. We repost what other people post. But they'll only post that if we got it right in the first place. So what we do is we concentrate on getting it right in the first place.

41:28Amol Rajan:That's so interesting. And that is a very useful corrective to what I said. But she also needs to think how people should feel when they're in that space. Because we're in the sensations business, we need to think about what people see what they smell what they taste what they hear and how it how the the place feels when you touch it because that's where we get all our inputs from well and that's where and we we our only outputs come from our inputs and we must think about those those sensations well when you think funny you mentioned smell when you go back to um uh a slightly younger machine coming over from sligo to uh to on the ferry uh called me old no no no when you come When you go back 35 years and I think about the pubs that you would have landed in in London in the early 90s, they smelled different.

42:15Amol Rajan:And they smelled different because people smoked. And I'd be really interested in your analysis of whether or not the smoking ban was this. Because I remember the debate around people saying it's going to kill the pubs. What has the smoking ban done to pubs and has it been a net loss of damage? I think from the point of view of working within the industry at the time, it was an earthquake. It was a huge. So it did have a big effect. Oh, it was a huge change. So many things changed because, as you say, they were completely full of smoke and they stank up until then, although we liked the smell.

42:50You stank.

42:51Amol Rajan:You go there and you come out and you stink of it. My clothes smelled of cigarette smoke for 25 years. And afterwards that kind of disappeared. And weirdly, I think they felt cleaner. They felt safer. People were much more confident to be able to eat there. That's when the gastropub thing really started to rise. I think we were much more confident to be able to do really good quality food and charge a little bit more for it. I think the whole atmosphere inside pubs improved. I think we got a far more diverse customer base because people who didn't smoke, Obviously, younger people, women, pregnant people were able to come and really, really enjoy it.

43:29And I think it's been great in the long run. It was very tough in the short term because we lost a lot of customers because they refused to come because they could smoke at home and get their cans from Tesco. And that was that that was a short term shock. but those of us who had those in the business including some of the big pub companies at the time who had vision to invest in food and invest in the environment and paint them different colors and put better quality you know soft furnishings into that didn't stink anymore they it really gave the place an impetus that's so interesting that's a classic i mean we think about this

44:03Amol Rajan:i don't want to make this about uk politics but you think a lot about the trade-offs between short-term pain and long-term gain yeah you know there's quite a lot of the hardest things that you've got to do in this country would involve really annoying some people in the short term and there being a shock and you know the graph uh of the kind of you know the commercial output sort of dipping very badly and going violently into the red before it sort of comes back smoking ban is a very good example of that because as you say short term a lot of people are very upset about it but long term you know 20 years or however many years on it is you're happy with the smoking ban you wouldn't reverse it and say people should be allowed to smoke in parts no i wouldn't i wouldn't although i i do i do fondly remember uh you know people being able to light up and have a chat at the bar and the smoke going over and back.

44:43And you know when you're in a foreign country like in Austria or you're in Switzerland late at night and they'll let the smoking come in, you have this sort of lovely sort of timeless memory of what it used to be. But it is really a memory and I think sometimes our memories are tinged with positivity that weren't necessarily there.

45:03Amol Rajan:Story of my life, boss. What about the drinking age? Rufus has just whispered to me, and it's a great privilege of doing this job that you have clever people tell you things that in Germany you can drink wine and beer I think within that sort of environment from the age of 16 yeah is that something we should look at in this country I mean I don't really think that it's a it's a driver I think it's not gonna be transformational you know if you bring your 16 year old to a restaurant in the UK you can still buy them beer or peri or cider right so as long as they're accompanied and you you purchase it um but you know i i can't see that being a massive upside i don't think children under 18 should be allowed to drink unsupervised in public spaces um uh for their safety and i think in general licensing on children and safety of children in pubs is pretty strong and i would support it i had this really remarkable experience way back when i was yeah Yeah, probably 15, 18 years ago.

46:02Amol Rajan:I was working in newspapers. And someone said to me, I really want you to come and meet this couple who've taken over a pub in South London. It was in Camberwell. And they basically, a friend of mine who was kind of the bridge, was basically trying to get a bit of coverage for the challenges back then that people who take over pubs from pub companies face. But the basic complaint back then was that a huge number of Britain's pubs are run by pub companies. And what they do is they get you in. I'm glad you're smiling because I don't know enough about this. they get you in by kind of you know offering pretty low prices entice you in because maybe sheila and mark and other people have got this great dream of running a pub and then they operate something called the tie which is that because of the the relationship commercially you have with the pub company they control the price a bit and they control your rent and they jack it up and eventually you go out of business really quite quickly how much of a problem are pub companies in this country in terms of the future of pubs and is the time what is the tide is it unfair I think the tie can be unfair.

47:00What is the tie?

47:01Amol Rajan:What am I even talking about? So some pub companies will lease you a pub, in other words, a tenancy or a leasehold pub, at a rate that looks very commercially exciting. Sheila and Mark are thinking, great, let's do this. Yeah, but what we need to do for Sheila and Mark is look at the price that they're going to be paying for the beer because they have to buy it from the same company. That's the deal with pubbos. And you'll find that that figure will be inflated against what they would be able to buy it for on the open market. So Sheila and Mark, look at this pub in this place in Surrey where they think, this is really exciting.

47:35Amol Rajan:We could do this. Look at the numbers. Mark's going to work even harder and hope to get a promotion. They can make it work. You know, they get it for cheaper than they might otherwise have done. But what they need to think about is that the pub company, not Sheila and Mark, but the pub company, will decide how much they pay for beer. Yeah. And therefore, Sheila and Mark in the first few years are not going to be making any money on their beer. That's not necessarily completely true. They will make money on their beer, but they need to look at the footfall. They need to look at how much they're going to be selling.

48:03And then they need to look at how much food they're going to be selling. So, for example, if Sheila and Mark are going to be turning into a restaurant where the average spend is£45 a head and most people are drinking wine, then what they're paying for beer becomes a little bit less important. If they're only going to be selling scotch eggs and they want it to be full of people drinking after work, then they need to look at the fact that their percentage margin on the entire business dropping down might be a bit lower. So what you need to do is plan for what you think it's going to look like, how much you're going to be selling on food, how much wine you're going to be selling, how much spirits you're going to be selling, how much beer you're going to be selling.

48:41Work out what the cost of all those things are and then you'll have an idea how much will drop down. And from that, you've got to pay all your wages, your rates, your taxes, your insurances, and then all your power and gas and all the other stuff. And you'll find how small the little bit gets at the end. And usually, Sheila and Mark will run a mile when you actually get to this end of the scale. That's the thing.

49:09Amol Rajan:Yeah. is that if Sheila and Mark put all the costs in and they put their kind of price in, they'll end up finding that it's very, very hard to make money, as lots of people are clearly finding. Do pub companies get a bad rep for the tie and for kind of selling people false promises? I think there might be an argument to say that's true, but I don't think saying that pub companies are necessarily bad is something we should be saying. because they would say they enter into a commercial agreement where they tell people that they want them to be flourishing and what's good for the landlords and the tenants is good for the pub companies, right?

49:49Well, I think they have a point, but also you can't put them all in the same basket either. If you look, for example, at Wetherspoons, who buy places that weren't pubs before, they turn them into great commercial businesses. They're a great social hub and, you know, they do what they do. They don't lease pubs to people and charge them silly money. There's lots of pub co's in London that don't do that. You know, there's a few that you could single out, but I'm not here for that. And also, it's not the actual story of what's going on. There are places where that's happening, unfortunately, to people.

50:25But most people are on at least some kind of level playing field.

50:30Amol Rajan:Yeah. I've had some of the happiest times in my life in pubs. I've met people in pubs. I've deepened the connections with other people that make life worth living in pubs. But I also think there's a very particular current problem, which is actually one of the main things we've talked about on this podcast in previous episodes, which is that we are living through, all of the evidence suggests, something like a crisis of social capital. Something like a kind of, you know, the institutions, not of central government or of the family, but the intermediate institutions, the social institutions, the neighbourhood, the little platoons, they're disappearing.

51:04Amol Rajan:And those places and spaces where people come together from sports clubs to trade unions to voluntary associations to the church and mosque and synagogue temple where people come together and they just relate to people in their neighborhoods. They're disappearing at an extraordinary rate. And one of the reasons that the evidence would suggest for that is because of technology. A lot of people just on their screens. the whole time. If we're going to save them, if the new Chancellor, whoever she or he may be, were to take a phone call from him, if they were going to call you and say, Oisin, you've become something of a champion of the British pub, you've done it really well, we heard you on that really amazing podcast with that really gorgeous host, tell us a couple of things that we could do tomorrow to save the British pub.

51:48Amol Rajan:What would you say? I would say that if they lowered VAT down to as low as it could possibly be, you get an instant impetus into the businesses to reinvest. Why would that work? If they'd say, why? We've got to find billions in this. We've got loads of people giving us grief. I've got this charity here. I've got that lobby group there. Why should I do that? Why would lowering VAT make such an instant? Because it would do so much for so many communities across the UK. It would stimulate employment. It would stimulate training. It would stimulate... All that money would go back into investing in the pub.

52:23So the local painter, decorator, window cleaner, they would be in there cleaning tidy and making it better. I think it would make people feel better. And I think the pubs themselves would instantly have an uplift.

52:36Amol Rajan:And they would say, okay, I should be like your idea about VAT. There's not much we can do about inflation, mate. There's not much we can do about the cost of energy or the cost of food, which, you know, if Donald Trump and his people decide to start a war alongside Israel in Iran, and that means the price of oil goes up, there's not much else we can do about that. What else can we do? So lowering VAT, is there anything else that you would like to see happen to try and, from a central government point of view, to try and save the British pub? I think they should look at the amount of tax we pay in other places as well, especially the national insurance contribution.

53:10Amol Rajan:Did that have a really big effect? Yeah, it was, you know, it was, I can't say exactly for us how much it was, but I know for bigger businesses it was enough to be a serious hit. and if they did all that and it meant that they slowed the kind of decline of the pub just remind us why you think a pub why a pub is worth saving well you know they've been part of the british cultural landscape for thousands of years they don't really work outside of these islands you know ireland england scotland wales you get a few well because they're culturally embedded and part of where we are and they've got this timeless heritage.

53:51You know, I'd say they're the most un-radical thing we have. And that's why being on the Radical podcast about pubs is difficult. Because I think they need to be de-radicalised, if anything. You know, because you think about for example, how Britain's portrayed on TV.

54:09Amol Rajan:What do you mean by that, de-radicalised? What do you mean? I think they should be more normalised. I think going to the pubs should be a thing that everybody should do and can be afforded to do, to go and meet your mates in the pub or people you don't know and just wander in. I think people should think about doing that more often because it's wonderful and I love it and it's part of my life and, you know, I'm a massive advocate for it. I think people are forgetting about it. But I was going to say about the representation of Britain and you think about any of the big dramas or even the soaps, you think about EastEnders, you think about Coronation Street, you think about Emmerdale or anything.

54:45when you've got these familial soap operas and you want to bring people together they always create the pub atmosphere so that that impingement can take place so you've got the Queen Vic in EastEnders that goes back for I don't know, is it 40 years? It's always been there and it's always a staple but it's never really celebrated and it's always been part of the background noise and that's what pubs are and they're so important for that and they're sort of so timeless and they've never been hypey and they're never about, you know, spike and disappear. They're always sort of there steadily in the background.

55:24I think that's the wonder of them and the best ones are like that and I think we really need to protect that.

55:29Amol Rajan:The best ones. What's so interesting about what you've said over the course of this conversation, which I've enjoyed so much even though we didn't have a glass or something in front of us, I've mostly done radical sober, I think which is a good way to do it, is that the best ones will survive. What I find so interesting, if I may say, about what you're saying, not only is the urgency and the passion with which you talk about, but the reality where you say some pubs will disappear. And there is a kind of, not Darwinian, but there is a kind of market discipline where, like James May, you would say that actually in order to protect and grow the great tradition and stop the decline of the Great British Pub, you've got to be honest about the fact that some aren't doing their job well enough.

56:11Amol Rajan:and that even as you try and get some to flourish, others that aren't serving the needs of a community and aren't commercially viable are just going to disappear. And that's just kind of the way of the world, right? I'm afraid so. I'm afraid so. And, you know, I've been close and connected to British pubs, London pubs in particular, for over 35 years. And I think it's true to say that, you know, when you bring a load of publicans together, it doesn't matter what year you bring them together, nobody ever goes, crikey, we've smashed it this year. we've really really made it this year it's always felt a bit like a struggle it's always been a situation where people look at it as a vocation and they make the best of it and they really enjoy it as much as they can but it does feel like it's always a slight struggle and you know when you get these extra pressures that we've had in the last few years it's not ideal however at the same time I love meeting my colleagues who are doing well and you know you go to these conferences and roundtables and the awards things and you meet so many incredibly happy, fantastic, hardworking, brilliant people and it's a wonderful community to be in and I just wish we could bring more people in to have a great time with us.

57:22Amol Rajan:And they do it because they love it. This being the BBC, it's very important in the spirit of absolute accuracy and fairness. And by the way, nothing you're saying is anti-government. You're asking for a bit of help making pubs survive but i just want to put to you what the government says because they would say a few things i just want to know what you think about them so peter carl who i think at the time of recording this is the business secretary who knows where he'll be in a in a future andy burnham led government if andy burnham does become prime minister talked about he's a business secretary says uk's pub sector is famous around the world loved by locals i'm proud of the significant contribution it makes to economic growth and social life and while i know many are facing challenges we have the right economic plan to put more money in people's pockets to spend in pubs And the government say, that's why we're cutting this year's business rates bills by 15%, followed by a two-year freeze, extending World Cup opening hours and increasing the hospitality support fund to£10 million, dealt venues grow.

58:15Amol Rajan:And this comes on top of capping corporation tax, tough action on late payments, cutting alcohol duty on draft pints and six cuts in interest rates, benefiting businesses in every part of Britain. Have those things, I mean, in fairness to the government, they would say those are specific things they've done, they've heard you out. Are those things going to make a difference? I think each individual thing will make a tiny difference, but when you weigh them against the headwinds, they're only a small margin. I will comment on the letting us open late. Some of us don't want our staff to have to work extra long hours into the night, and for some pubs it's not necessary.

58:57It is, I'm sure, welcome for some, but some of us don't even have TVs because we like to have a chat.

59:03Amol Rajan:what sort of hours do you work? So the pub opens every day at 11 and we stop serving at 11 at night as well. I tend to be in probably 8 in the morning, always have a nap in the afternoon. Do you? I do every day. Oh, my goodness. I have done for years and years and years. You've got a reputation, if I may say, for being a very adored boss, but also a ferocious work ethic. You work six days a week at least? Sometimes seven? I try to pretend I work five, but it's more six, yeah. And you have a nap at the pub? No, I have a little flat just around the corner from the pub, and I never take meetings after 2.30, and I'm always back to work at 4.30 or 4.45.

59:50Amol Rajan:How do you successfully nap? Do you put a little one of those things on? Your eyes are just not possible. Honestly, I've been doing it forever. I can literally sit down, close my eyes, and be asleep in four minutes, and I only sleep for 40. or maybe 50 if I'm very tired. And I'll automatically wake up. I don't set an alarm and I'm straight up and ready to go again. I've done it for years and years and years. And I think I'm weird, but I get away with it. A little siesta. Well, you stayed awake for all of this, which is an incredible achievement. And you're very, very kind and going to stick around.

1:00:19Amol Rajan:We've got lots and lots of questions, including from some people that are a bit like Sheila and Mark, who've sent in questions for you, if you're happy to do our Q &A. But the only thing I've got left to do is to say thank you very, very much indeed. Amol, I've really enjoyed it. I hadn't wished to talk so much about regulation and tax and VAT as much as I did, but I'm glad I did. And thank you for asking. And, you know, I think not only are pubs incredibly important, but they're also brilliant and they're underrated. And I wish people would use them more. And I'm certain they will because there's so many good ones about.

1:00:52Amol Rajan:O'Sheen Rogers, thank you so much for being so radical. Yeah, thanks, Emil.

1:01:03Amol Rajan:Ashin Rogers is someone who believes very, very, very strongly, and he's given 35 years to this belief, really, that pubs are a very essential part of our history and our identity on these islands. But he also thinks that they're an answer, a solution, a radical solution, to many of the problems of our modern age. Problems that we've talked about a lot on this podcast. Issues like loneliness, like isolation, like the collapse of social capital and the crisis of community. the fact that we need third spaces, places that are not the family home, they're not the workplace, but something in between.

1:01:34Amol Rajan:And he thinks that pubs need more protection from the government, both on tax and in terms of protecting their heritage. He's got that specific idea about so-called golden bricks or finding some sort of way in a planning system to recognise the heritage of these buildings. And he wants the government to be radical. He wants government to cut VAT. He says if you cut VAT from 20 % to 10 % or even further, that would pay for itself because you get more people working and pubs creating more economic value. He also wants this radical new legislation that makes it more difficult for pubs to be sold off just because it might be more economically viable to treat them as commercial offices, for instance, rather than as these wonderful pubs.

1:02:13Amol Rajan:And he argues that we should value pubs in a way that can't be measured in money alone. But also, really interestingly, he does acknowledge these underlying cultural trends. You can often split the trends that we talk about on this podcast between economic forces or commercial forces on the one hand and cultural forces on the other. And there are just these deep cultural forces that are affecting the future viability of many pubs. So people are just drinking less. Young people consume less alcohol in general terms overall than older people. It's also the case that supermarkets are selling alcohol for much cheaper than they used to.

1:02:47Amol Rajan:And frankly, if that means that some pubs are unable to survive in the Darwinian race that is modern commerce, O'Sheen Rogers, a bit like James May, who I quoted in that conversation, just thinks that the good ones will survive, the bad ones will fall away. And the overarching message, if he were to sum it up, is that if pubs want to keep their doors open, if they want to thrive morally and commercially, they need to start with the fundamentals. They need to create an amazing environment, a special kind of universe or sanctuary where people feel happy, where they feel relaxed, where they feel they belong, where they feel they can connect to other people.

1:03:22Amol Rajan:and if they get that right, then in his view, pubs will have an, if not necessarily sober, certainly a sustainable future.

1:03:34Amol Rajan:That is it for this episode. I kind of want to say see you in the pub, but who knows if we will. To make sure you don't miss future conversations, you can subscribe to Radical with Amol Rajan on BBC Sounds and do please join us on Monday. We've got some fantastic questions and answers in our Your Radical Questions with Asheen, where he's going to be answering the questions you sent in about pubs, hospitality, community, and costs. Speak to you then. Goodbye.

1:04:06Amol Rajan:Every story is a technology story in one way or another. And on The Interface, we decode the tech that's rewiring your week and your world. On this week's episode, we look at the UK's teen social media ban and ask, what happens next? Why are AI companies so interested in nuclear fusion energy? And will the new iPhone AI update mean that Siri will finally be good? Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.