Last week, Ryan Reynolds and his fellow Wrexham owners bought The Turf, the pub where the football club was founded in 1864. They’ve promised to preserve its character and keep the longstanding landlord behind the bar. Reynolds is a longtime donor to the Democratic Party, but it’s hard to imagine a more conservative act than guaranteeing a pub’s future.
Sir Ian McKellen, a man who prides himself on voting Labour at every election, admitted as much when he took on the 500-year-old, Grade II-listed Grapes in Limehouse: ‘Dickens wrote that “it had outlasted and clearly would yet outlast many a better trimmed building”… I wanted to make sure it continues to do so.’
Celebrities are our new aristocracy
British pubgoers, too, are natural conservatives. Growing up above a rural inn – where matters as trivial as switching apple juice suppliers caused jaws to drop – I learnt that nothing alarms them more than change. Regardless of the assurances they’ve received, I imagine The Turf’s regulars will have lots of questions. Will they be able to sit at their favourite table? Drink their preferred pint? Blast Tom Jones from the jukebox?
They have nothing to fear. For, today, celebrities make the best pub landlords. That’s precisely because they are conservatives: custodians who see their pubs as institutions to enjoy, protect and pass on.
This thesis struck me on a recent visit to the Fox and Pheasant in Chelsea, owned by James Blunt. This compact pub is as notable for what isn’t there as for what is. Posters advertising three Jägerbombs for a tenner? Nowhere to be seen. Signs demanding your order via an app? Zero. Shouty marketing for Sky Sports? Blissfully absent.
There are charming period features and pieces of lovingly restored antique furniture. Patrons are encouraged to help themselves to iced water, complete with strawberries and mint. As you approach the bar, your eyes are spared fluorescent lager badges. Pints are around £6.50 – sadly standard for London – but served in elegant, unbranded glasses. The card machine does not suggest a tip.
Most remarkably of all, a fully stocked rack of newspapers hangs on the wall. This makes little sense in business terms since you have to sell a lot of pints to cover the cost of four or five papers. But where a free-marketeer would chase the bottom line, a conservative sees a tradition worth preserving. The Fox and Pheasant is a community asset, a place where people want to spend time, not a scheme to make a quick buck. A lunch elsewhere beckoned too soon. With apologies to the landlord: Goodbye, my boozer, goodbye, my friend, you have been the one for me.
Four miles to the east in Fitzrovia, Guy Ritchie’s Lore of the Land is equally glorious. You’re welcomed by staff in handsome uniforms: crisp shirts and thick aprons. They call you Sir or Madam. No matter how vehemently we deny it, we all like being Sir or Madam for an hour. Escapism is what the pub is for. The chap behind the bar sports a wonderful English moustache. When you order a Virgin Mary, instead of looking at you like an alien, he nods and asks how spicy you’d like it. When it’s time for another round, he asks, ‘Same again?’ and gets the order bang on every time. This, too, is conservatism: the belief that small courtesies and proper standards hold society together.
My fondness for Virgin Marys gives the game away. I don’t drink. Free from thoughts of where my next pint is coming from, I see plenty of pubs for what they are: corporate machines where every expense is spared. I notice the soft drinks served without ice, never mind a sliver of lemon or lime; the £4 packet of crisps; the young British staff who’d rather be anywhere else; the fresh arrivals from the subcontinent, earnest and hopeless in equal measure; the toilets you can smell your way to; the empty glasses littering the room. The big pubco venues that dominate central London are guilty of these crimes and more.
But don’t mistake this hostility to pubcos for a dislike of pubs. In the quiet hours of the afternoon, I’d love nothing more than to take refuge in a hostelry. I know other café hoppers who feel the same way. The trouble is, lots of our locals subject us to rickety chairs, revolting coffee and offensive cover music; in pursuit of lower costs, many turn out identikit freezer food. The Fox and Pheasant and Lore of the Land, with their well-kept rooms and seasonal menus, seem to belong to another world.
No amount of government intervention can bridge this gap. Tax cuts may keep businesses solvent, but they can’t make publicans clean their loos or train their staff. Besides, Britain is broke. We cannot afford it. Inevitably, more pubs are going to go bust. Some will close for good; others will be hoovered up by the pubcos. Our Prime Minister may enjoy drinking in Wetherspoons, but I’ve got a better answer: more celebrity-owned pubs.
They vote Labour and insist they are self-made, but celebrities are our new aristocracy. They have personal fortunes, public reputations and a weakness for posterity; they live in big houses and their children make millions trading off the family name. It’s only right they give a bit back and preserve pubs for the proles. Think of it as a new noblesse oblige.
Ellie Goulding, if a Google Alert has brought you this far, do you fancy buying my local – the pub I grew up in? You used to work there, after all. Think of your people, Ellie, think of your people.
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