Rishi Sunak spent £2m on focus groups for ‘eat out to help out’ scheme

9 comments

1. What’s that, 2% of the policy cost? That sounds reasonable in determining the acceptability.

2. The real cost is all the dead people people because of that stupid scheme

3. I wonder how much we’re paying for everyone who was disabled by the scheme, considering Long Covid estimates are about 10-20%, not to mention increasing the risk of all sorts of illnesses. We could’ve spent the money on air purifiers for schools and businesses as a far better long term solution to help society bounce back.

4. I swear people can never be happy in this country 😂

   Always some snarky bullshit comments 😂

5. And they still called it ‘eat out to help out’. Money well spent.

6. It was a good boost for businesses before the inevitable autumn lockdowns…..but it was so close to being a success all round.

   “Take out to help out”.

   Offer a 25% discount for a longer period on takeaway food. You still support the businesses in a somewhat more sustainable way, and it would have had a smaller effect on COVID.

7. To me it depends a lot on whether this was “will people use this, are they happy with this idea, will this policy achieve anything” or whether it was simply “will this be popular with voters, and make me more likely to be PM”?  

   I suppose in some ways it’s difficult to separate “would people like this” and “is it a vote winner” but it sounds like this definitely falls into tge second camp.

   But secondly, what is this nonsense?  

   > Sunak has denied that the £850m policy – which gave diners a state-funded £10 discount – drove a second wave of Covid infections, despite research showing it caused a rise of between 8% and 17%, while the economic benefits of the scheme were short-lived.

   Obviously he’s not gonna say “my policy killed people” but it’s essentially just straight up lying.  I’ll just copy and paste what I wrote before about EOTHO –  

   > Eat out to help out HAD to cause covid rates to increase. Literally had to. 

   > Otherwise, there was no point closing pubs and restaurants in the first place. 

   > If people going to pubs and restaurants doesn’t spread covid, leave them open. If it does spread covid, then a policy of getting people to go to pubs and restaurants causes more cases. 

   > It’s literally that simple.

8. £2million quid for a scheme that sounded like a 80s porno video. Jesus wept!

9. So glad our collective risk of death is decided by focus groups and not scientists, professionals, sociologists or otherwise experts in public behaviour and safety. And before someone says “it was for the economic side” then pay economists. The Tory party literally only ever thinks of greed first, PR second (to enable the greed for as long as possible), and nothing else.