The Untold Story of “Eat Out to Help Out” And Why the Inquiry Changes Everything

When the Eat Out to Help Out scheme launched in August 2020, it felt like a lifeline. It was  bold, clever and for a brief moment, wildly successful. But five years on, the UK COVID-19 Inquiry has revealed a very different story behind the scenes… and it’s one that reshapes what we thought we knew.

In my latest piece, I revisit what I wrote in real time during 2020 — the optimism, the booming August, the sudden stall, the November collapse — and set it against what the Inquiry has now uncovered: no scientific consultation, contradictory public messages and decisions made in a vacuum.  

The result? A scheme that worked spectacularly for a month, failed to deliver sustainable recovery and may have worsened the health crisis it was meant to help us escape.

If you want to understand how a policy can be both intelligently designed and fundamentally flawed… how frontline experience and political decision-making can tell two very different stories… and why the hospitality sector deserved far better…

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