Big Week Ahead Politically....

Big week ahead politically, and if we’re honest, most people in business don’t fully realise just how much politics actually touches what we do day to day.

It’s easy to switch off from it. It feels distant. Complicated. Not really our lane. But the reality is, a lot of what we’re all dealing with right now in hospitality isn’t just “how the industry is”, it’s the result of decisions that have been building for years.

You could go back decades and pick apart where it’s all gone wrong.

Underinvestment in housing, transport, energy… the big stuff that sits in the background but slowly chips away at how easy it is to run a business. Staff can’t afford to live nearby. Travel becomes harder. Energy becomes unpredictable and expensive. That’s not a new problem, and it’s not down to one party either. It’s been mishandled for a long time.

But what’s really biting right now is the stuff that could be eased, adjusted, or at the very least better thought through, and instead, it just keeps stacking up.

That’s the word that sums it up best: stacking.

On their own, most of the changes we’re seeing are manageable. You adapt, you tweak, you find a way through. That’s what hospitality does. But when everything lands at once, it’s a different story entirely.

Business rates keep climbing, especially for accommodation, and they don’t care whether you’ve had a great month or a quiet one, they’re there regardless. Wages go up, which in principle is right, but then so do employer contributions, national insurance, pensions… and suddenly the real cost of employing someone is far higher than it looks on paper.

Then there’s VAT. Sitting at 20% in the UK while much of Europe operates closer to 10–13%. That gap might not sound huge, but it changes everything. It limits how you price, it squeezes margins, and it makes it harder to compete, especially when customers are already watching what they spend.

And then layer on the rest, energy costs, food inflation, general overheads, and you start to see where the pressure really builds.

This is where businesses start to change their behaviour. Not because they want to, but because they have to. Recruitment slows down. Hours get cut. Investment gets paused. Plans that looked exciting six months ago suddenly don’t stack up anymore.

And alongside all of that, the complexity just keeps increasing. Rates reliefs that change year to year. Policies that shift. More admin. More compliance. More time spent trying to understand the rules instead of actually running a business. It’s draining, and it makes it harder to plan ahead with any real confidence.

Then you step outside of the business and it’s the same story. Parking costs more. Council tax goes up. Rent, food, utilities, all rising. So it’s not just operators feeling it, it’s customers too. And that feeds straight back into the industry.

None of this is about telling anyone who to vote for. It’s not that simple!

But it is about being more aware.

Are you actually better off right now?

Is your business in a stronger position?

Are the decisions being made helping you grow, or just making it harder to stand still?

And maybe the bigger one, are you making your choice based on what’s happening now, or just what you’ve always done?

Because hospitality isn’t struggling for lack of passion, effort or ideas. If anything, there’s more of that than ever.

It’s being squeezed by government and at some point, that needs to be recognised...