Given it’s all anyone’s interested in, Guido brings you the seminal guide to what pubs and popular restaurants are re-opening when, from Westminster and Pimlico, to Victoria and Charing Cross. Firstly Guido is sad to report the demise of two well-known SW1 restaurants: Quirinale on Great Peter Street, and Roux at Parliament Square. They will be missed.
On to the happier news, plenty of outlets are re-opening on Monday. Bookings-only places are denoted with a 📅:
SW1 politicos will have been disappointed to learn Strangers won’t be re-opening before June 21st, in line with the Speaker’s dovish roadmap. There is cause for celebration, however; the Red Lion has confirmed it will re-open its doors on May 17, in line with the government’s unlocking roadmap. Last year the Old Star was the first to re-open and the last to close. Which watering hole will be the first to grasp the opportunity of re-opening first this time around?
UPDATE: Guido learns SpAd favourite the Clarence has also committed to re-opening on May 17th. Finally, Rosenfield can take his team for that cheeky pint he’s been promising…
Guido’s sure readers will be relieved to hear Labour has come out against a policy that never had any chance of materialising; Saturday’s Telegraph splashed that pubs may re-open in April, though without alcohol. Senior government sources immediately dismissed the harebrained suggestion, telling Guido “We are not going to open pubs that can’t sell booze. What would be the point of that?”.
Three days later and Labour has also come out against the dead-in-the-water policy, with Lucy Powell saying the idea was “nonsense” and “ridiculous”:
Labour’s research and briefing department is very sloppy these days…
Five yeas ago Tim Pitt did a track about Owen Jones, alas as old Owen creeps towards his fortieth birthday, it has dated somewhat. So Tim’s updated the track and remixed it to feature our very own social media star, Tom Harwood. Our Tom protests, somewhat unconvincingly, that he hates it. His legions of fans will love it…
Tim tells Guido that
“I wrote this song from the perspective of a deluded celebrity stalker after reading a newspaper article a few years back. It’s quite fascinating in this social media obsessed age how in the extreme, boundaries can be blurred.”
We’ve been listening to the house melody all afternoon, it is a lockdown earworm….
If you really stan Tom, we’ve even produced a downloadable mobile phone ringtone for you too: “Tom Harwood ringtone“.
On Friday, Plymouth Labour members were treated to hilarious scenes as Zoom guest-of-honour Dawn Butler enjoyed a typical lockdown weekend getting plastered. The clearly-giddy Dawn subsequently came out with some top mosquito facts and forgot the names of Scottish Labour’s leadership candidates. To be fair to Dawn, that question is impossible sober…
Yvette has figured out what to do during the pandemic in isolation…
