Britain's Worst Wetherspoons?

Refresher: 21st August, 2023. Since writing this piece there has been a cull of some of the Houses of Horror in the 'Spoons estate. I am delighted to say that The Pear Tree in Kings Heath, Birmingham, has gone. It was undoubtedly the worst from my own personal experience. The almost-as-bad Rising Sun has set in Redditch, and West Brom's Billiard Hall has been potted too.

To be fair, the vile Kings Heath hell-hole has been replaced with The Navigation in Kings Norton which, so far, is a cut above (pun intended).

However, I did have the misfortune of visiting the ghastly White Swan in Solihull on Saturday. This appalling pub was rammed at lunchtime but my companion and I found it so depressing we beat a hasty retreat after one pint.

Here's the original post. Anymore I should add to the list?

It is easy to mock Wetherspoons and so I should start with bouquets before brickbats. Like most drinkers I use the chain from time to time where I cannot find a suitable "independent" alternative. In the years before the plague, I enjoyed The High Constable of England on Gloucester Docks, Goodman's Field near the Tower of London and, for exceptional service in a busy environment, The Sir John Hackshaw at Cannon Street Station - again in London (although my judgement of the latter may have been clouded by the stunning beauty of the serving staff!)

However, most drinkers have suffered the interminable wait for service prevalent throughout the chain only to be presented with a badly-kept, undrinkable, ale from what had appeared to be a mouth-watering range. And the usual vertiginous climb to the lavatory is the stuff of legend.

Sometimes the chain manages to present both good and bad in the same town. In Redditch (the apex of North Worcestershire's Bore-muda Triangle) the Mulleted One presents the relatively civilised The Royal Enfield on the one hand, and the dire mouth of Hades The Rising Sun on the other!

Yesterday I opinied on social media that The Pear Tree in the Kings Heath suburb of Birmingham must surely me the worst Spoons in Britain. Respected commentators on the pub scene soon suggested alternatives for the tarnished crown with the two stand-outs being The Dragon Inn, Weston-super-Mare (described as "beyond grim") and The George Hotel, Whittlesey (near Peterborough.)

Bubbling under the top three are The Old Swanne Inn, Evesham and the unimaginatively named, er, Wetherspoons at Piccadilly, Manchester (surely destined to soon become the Saint Marcus Rashford.)

The Billiard Hall, West Bromwich surprisingly escaped condemnation although the state of the Gents leaves a lot to be desired!

Image - City A.M.

Please email with any thoughts for other entrants to the Hall of Shame or with comments generally! 

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Marcus Rashford Tax Mystery!

Before the usual suspects reach for the digital equivalent of the green ink bottle may we say that we are are great admirers of the playing skills of Manchester United and England star Marcus Rashford. We wish him well and fervently hope to see him and his England team mates lift the World Cup one fine day. Neither are we perverted socialists embittered with envy. We do not begrudge him what the market dictates he is worth. To quote Labour's Peter Mandleson, "we are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes".

Young Marcus has hit the headlines recently by campaigning for working people much poorer than himself (many of whom are struggling themselves due to Covid) to subsidise meals during the school holidays for parents who cannot feed their own kids. Mr Rashford describes these meals as "free" but, of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch and it is us hard-pressed taxpayers who must actually shoulder the additional cost and cough-up the dosh.

We came across this small piece recently (alas we did not record the source and can give no attribution):

(Please keep in mind the 19% Corporation Tax rate.)

This led us to take a look at Companies House records with a rather surprising result. Unlike the web of limited companies and "limited liability partnerships" set up by rich as Croesus striker turned "left-winger" Gary Lineker, Rashford has just three limited companies to his name - all registered at the Manchester offices of the large accountancy firm, Grant Thornton. In 2019 he set up a property development company like Red stars Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs before him. He also set up a separate property company which has charges registered against three properties, all situated in the Cheshire "footballer belt".

The Company that concerns us is the third, MUCS Enterprises Limited. We will just note in passing that Rashford has clearly been very well advised (which is good) since he became director of this company as long ago as June 2015. The latest accounts were filed in February of this year for the year ending 30th April, 2019 (and one assumes that Marcus's worth continues to increase). 

Despite the amount of money sloshing around here the law provides for fairly limited information to be publicised. A limited company has two main accounting documents - a profit and loss account (which is not publicly disclosed) and a balance sheet (which is). There is a mention of trademarks in the accounts and so it is possible that this relates to income arising from his image and other rights (in addition to his pay for playing football.)

The balance sheet shows a transfer of monies in from the profit and loss account of a stonking £3,546,352. Rashford has been allowed to claim deferred taxation of just £1,468. There is reference to "accrued income" which may or may not be relevant but on the face of it he should have been paying 19% Corporation Tax of the profit and loss figure ie. £673,806.88 of which £1,468 has been deferred. Yet the accounts show the sum of corporation tax actually handed over to the taxman as just £266,867 - well below the headline rate. On the face of it, the tax paid appears to be over £400,000 "short" which would pay for an awful lot of "free" school meals!

There is no suggestion by us of any impropriety by Mr Rashford since he is expertly advised by professionals. We are not accountants (thank god) and so we wrote to Marcus's management via his website querying this apparent anomaly but they have not condescended to reply. Perhaps they will now ask Grant Thronton to explain this mystery to us all?

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