COMMENT KATE NICHOLLS

THE continued demonisation of the hospitality sector has now officially entered the realm of the insane.

Albert Einstein tends to be credited with the phrase that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result each time.

That is what we are seeing being meted out on the hospitality sector – enforcing the same illogical regulations on the country and expecting a different outcome from the last.

Yet again, the hospitality sector is shouldering a massively disproportionate burden and being forced to pay the price for a mess that is not of its making.

Moving London and parts of the South- east into Tier 3 amounts to a forcible shutdown.

These are hospitality businesses that have spent small fortunes in some cases making their venues safer.

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All the data shows that Covid cases linked to hospitality remain a tiny amount, but we are still made to pay the price.

Even more nonsensical is the fact that the crackdown on hospitality is for an increase in the infection rates that occurred when our sector was forcibly closed.

Our sector has seemingly been sacrificed without the application of common sense or forethought for the damage.

This is a sector that, pre- crisis, employed over three million people but is now being thrown under the bus.

Businesses that have not already folded are looking ahead to a disastrous Christmas and some will be making difficult decisions about when they decide to call it a day.

The Government must rethink its tactics in combating the virus. Recent experience has proven that simply giving hospitality another kicking is not the way to do it.