10 2GM Monday July 27 2020 | the times
News
Conventional wisdom has it that the
lockdown was a mixed bag in terms of
lifestyle changes. We exercised more
and many of us stopped smoking, but
perhaps we over-compensated with
those extra gin and tonics or glasses of
chardonnay.
It turns out that overall alcohol con-
sumption has fallen as the undoubted
rise in drinking at home was far out-
weighed by the halt to social drinking in
pubs, clubs and restaurants.
Indeed once the rise in off sales over
the past four months is subtracted from
total sales last year both on and off
licensed premises in the same period,
it turns out that we drank 547,878,
fewer litres of alcohol than a year ago.
In the four months since the lock-
down began drinkers spent more than a
third more on alcohol in shops — an
additional £1.9 billion — than in the
same period last year, according
Beer sales rose, and yet we drank less
Greg Hurst Social Affairs Editor
Dominic Walsh
to Nielsen, a provider of consumer data.
In the first week of the lockdown
alcohol sales by value were up 11 per
cent year on year, and by 14.1 per cent in
the second week before declining grad-
ually to an increase of 9 per cent by
mid-June, the Wine and Spirit Trade
Association said.
Sales of beer and cider were up by
50 per cent; flavoured gins and cheap
vodka were the most popular spirits.
Champagne sales fell by 12 per cent but
sparkling wine was up by 13 per cent.
At first Samantha Johnstone drank
more during the lockdown. She was
working from home and began to have
her first glass of wine in late afternoon
rather than early evening.
Ms Johnstone, 39, a civil servant from
Preston, would previously have a glass
of wine or prosecco as she cooked sup-
per, another with the meal and another
afterwards.
“It was a way to unwind at night,” she
said. “I would have a glass of wine or a
glass of prosecco and that became anormal thing to do. It went from just
having a drink at the weekend to having
a few drinks every single night. Then
lockdown happened and I noticed I was
thinking, ‘Is four o’clock too early to
have my first drink?’ ”
Her son then said that she would not
be able to go for a month without alco-
hol. To prove him wrong, she did. “I
thought, ‘I feel amazing. I am sleeping
better.’ It was all positives. So when it
got to my month I thought, ‘I’m just
going to carry on.’ And I did.”
Research for Alcohol Change UK
suggests that 21 per cent of people were
drinking more in April, but 35 per cent
had been drinking less or had stopped
altogether. Wealthy professionals were
more likely to be drinking more.
Miles Beale, chief executive of the
Wine and Spirit Trade Association,
said: “There were clear signs of stock-
piling alcohol at the beginning of the
lockdown with sales dipping as people
took time to get through their lock-
down larders.”Westminster Abbey has lost more than
£12 million in revenue this year and is
due to lay off about 20 per cent of its
staff because of the lockdown.
The abbey, which makes more than
90 per cent of its income through en-
trance fees, closed on March 20 and has
welcomed limited numbers since July- The four-month closure to the public
was its longest since preparation for the
Coronation in 1953.
The 39th Dean of Westminster, the
Very Rev David Hoyle, told the BBC
that the pandemic was a “shattering
blow” to the abbey’s finances. It pre-
dicts a “breathtaking” loss of at least
£9 million next year.
Dr Hoyle said that the abbey’s finan-
cial reserves would be depleted by a
third from September and would con-
tinue to fall as visitor numbers were not
Westminster Abbey braces
for job cuts as cash dries up
expected to return to pre-pandemic
levels for up to five years.
The abbey is open for services and a
limited number of visitors. In a “nor-
mal” July it would be admitting 1,
people an hour, Dr Hoyle said, adding:
“We are vulnerable and we are getting
more vulnerable. We’re negotiating
one of the greatest challenges to hit the
abbey in recent times.”
Separately, the Church of England’s
42 cathedrals are projected to be down
more than £28.4 million on the projec-
ted budget this year. The cathedrals are
projected to lose another £15.5 million
next year.
The Association of English Cathe-
drals, which represents Westminster
Abbey and the 42 Anglican cathedrals,
warned that job cuts would hit church-
es around the country when the gov-
ernment’s job retention scheme ended
in October.Ali MitibUyen Luu, a Vietnamese chef and
photographer, was meant to be cele-
brating the end of lockdown at the
weekend with a supper club. But the
party of 16 cancelled, too nervous to
take up Rishi Sunak’s appeal to “eat out
to help out”.
“That’s how it’s been,” Ms Luu, 43,
said. “People book then cancel. They
are so unsure. It would have cost me
more to put this on, than not, with food
costs, staff, cleaning, PPE etc. But I
wanted to see how it went.”
Before lockdown, Ms Luu held week-
end supper clubs for up to 50 people.
Jamie Oliver, the chef and restaurateur,
and Ellie Goulding, the singer, were
among her fans. “If there aren’t enough
people there isn’t any profit,” Ms Luu
said. “So I have to pay the rent by work-
ing as a photographer.
“I have had a few shoots but so much
has been cancelled. I lost 95 per cent of
my business [in lockdown]. I have never
been in debt and it is so stressful.
“If things stay as they are I don’t
know what I will do. I have the lease [on
a workshop] for another two years, so I
can’t leave unless I go bankrupt.”
Bankruptcy is a real possibility, withNews Coronavirus
From chefs to candle makers, it’s a
the rent and service charge at Regent
Studios, a community of 54 creative in-
dustries in Hackney, east London,
starting at about £30,000 a year.
A couple of doors down from Ms
Luu’s third floor studio, Jonathan Ward,
a luxury candle maker, is equally
gloomy about the future.
“I have gone from £10,000 to £15,
turnover a month to £300 to £1,
almost overnight,” he said. “I made just
£211 last week. I am owed so much by
the big retail guys and in lost sales.”
He points towards boxes of candles
and diffusers made to order — orders
that were made, then cancelled.
Mr Ward and Ms Luu are among
about three million freelance workers
and small business owners who have
been excluded from the chancellor’s
£3 billion economic support package.Many of them were locked out of initia-
tives such as the self-employment in-
come support scheme because they
have had annual trading profits of more
than £50,000 in the past three years,
they operate as limited companies or
are pay-as-you-earn contractors.
Mr Sunak apologised to those who
missed out, warning that “hardship lies
ahead for many” because, despite the
government’s interventions, a reces-
sion still looms in the autumn.
The creative industries sector has
been hit harder than most, with more
than a third working in a freelance or
sole-employee capacity.
Figures from the Creative Industries
Federation show that more than
400,000 jobs in the sector are at risk —
with 122,000 employees and 287,
self-employed workers likely to losetheir livelihoods. “I have had 21 rejec-
tions for different loans and grants,”
Mr Ward said. “It is impossibly tricky
for small businesses. The rent and utili-
ty bills are mounting up. It is a massive
source of anxiety to be acquiring debts,
I am seriously worried I might have to
go back to making candles from home.”
The government has pledged a
£1.57 billion support package to the cre-
ative industries but this pales in com-
parison with the £77 million predicted
loss in turnover the sector is expecting
this year.
Caroline Norbury, the film producer
and chief executive of the federation,
said: “What the pandemic has exposed
is that the very things that make the
creative sector so profitable — our flex-
ibility as mainly small businesses, our
agility, the high level of commitmentThe creative industry has been forced to its knees
and ignored by the chancellor so its workers are
finding some artful dodges, Carol Lewis writes