‘It’s the Gov, not bookies ruining this country’, Burnham’s constituents hit back after PM’s high streets comments

IT is 11am at a Betfred bookies in Andy Burnham’s constituency and the shop regulars are poring over the day’s race cards. Amid the laughter and banter, retired bricklayer Derek Gaskell, 75, tells me: “It’s like a social club where you come to meet your friends. Retired brickie Derek Gaskell goes to the bookies to meet his palsCredit: Refer to source Chicken shop owner Marcin Wysocki wants migrant hotels closedCredit: Refer to source “I’ll have a fiver on a horse if I fancy it. This isn’t the sort of area where people can bet £500.” Yet this week the new Prime Minister wagged a hectoring finger at betting shops like this one and declared them a blight on “hollowed out” high streets. Sign up for the Money newsletter Thank you! It was perhaps a surprising move for a man who prides himself on his common touch. Indeed, Burnham might want to pop into Betfred in Ashton-in-Makerfield town centre and witness for himself the camaraderie and community spirit thriving inside. Over a free cup of tea which comes on tap at the shop in Greater Manchester, an 81-year-old retired hairdresser tells me she brings in her husband to meet his mates after he had a stroke. The woman, who didn’t want to be named, revealed: “We come in every day and I don’t even have a bet. Everyone is lovely, including the staff. It’s like a little community. “My husband has a little bet and a laugh with his friends. It keeps his brain going.” Studying the form, retired joiner Martin Rock, 81, who likes to bet around £12.50 a week on accumulators, said: “I know everyone here by their face if not their name.” Most read in Money As for the Government crackdown on bookies, he said: “Nobody forces you to come into a bookies and put a bet on. It’s up to you.” Pledging to bring high streets “back to life”, the Prime Minister announced measures on Tuesday to give local councils the power to block betting shops, arcades and vape shops. Burnham insisted: “The rise of vape shops, betting shops and rogue operators have replaced the shops, services and community spaces that people are crying out for.” And Labour MP Dawn Butler said: “We have to stop this ridiculous proliferation of betting shops.” Yet there is no “proliferation” of bookies overwhelming our high streets. In fact, numbers are in freefall. Gambling Commission figures reveal that there were 9,111 betting shops in Britain in March 2014. By March this year numbers had collapsed to 5,542. There have been 15,000 jobs lost as a result of the closures since 2019 — many in the left-behind areas Burnham is now trying to revitalise. Many in the industry are furious that Burnham mentioned bookies in the same breath as “rogue operators”. The Betting and Gaming Council said: “It is wrong to lump highly regulated, licensed betting shops together with rogue or criminal businesses.” Natalie Leonard outside the shop she has managed for nine yearsCredit: Refer to source Punter Martin Rock having a fun wager on the horsesCredit: Refer to source And an industry source said: “Labour is shaming thousands of hard-working Brits who have jobs with bookies as well as people who like a bet.” Conservative MP Nigel Huddleston said Burnham’s plans are “nanny-state nonsense”, adding: “The lefties just can’t resist telling people what to do and how to spend their money, can they?” Inside Ashton’s Betfred, retired tyre fitter John Kavanagh, 81, has just had a £5 accumulator bet at Beverley races. Of the Prime Minister’s crackdown, he insisted: “We’re all grown adults. “If we choose to go into a betting shop it’s our privilege.” Watching over her community of punters is Natalie Leonard, who has managed the shop for nine years. The mum-of-three, 39, said: “Many of our customers here are elderly. There’s a lot of men who have lost their wives and are lonely. “They come in to have a catch-up with friends over a cup of tea. There’s a lot of them only put a pound on a race. “It’s wrong that we’re being compared to vape shops.” A mile away is Haydock Park, a sporting jewel just outside Burnham’s constituency which stages the Group 1 Haydock Sprint Cup and the Grade 1 Betfair Chase. This week Entain, which owns Ladbrokes and Coral, revealed its betting shops pump around £50million a year into British horseracing. So are bookmakers really helping to “hollow out” Ashton? Since its William Hill shop closed earlier this year, there are just two betting shops in the town centre with another more than a mile away on the outskirts. Jack Duffy, boss of Red Lion pub, says the tax cut is not enoughCredit: Refer to source Andy Burnham on a trip to Makerfield in June Credit: AP At his newsagents adorned with The Sun’s masthead, Steven Broadhurst, 64, said: “Bookies aren’t part of the problem. The Government get enough tax off them. “They don’t get any tax off the shops selling fake cigarettes at £5 a packet.” Steven says Labour’s tax hikes mean many local businesses are loath to take on new staff. The dad-of-two added: “I won’t even think about employing staff now. It’s just me and the wife. “The Government put up Employer’s National Insurance and dropped the threshold where you start paying it. And then they put the minimum wage up as well. “It’s ridiculous. Small businesses can’t afford to employ anybody.” At his car parts business nearby, Michael Lysons, 40, told me: “We’ve been here for 54 years and it has never been more difficult. “We haven’t paid business rates for 15 years and they’ve come back in again this year. The price of everything is going up, including our electricity bill.” As for Ashton being blighted by bookies, Michael said: “The problem on the high street are these vape shops and the cover-ups for what’s really going on behind the doors.” Last year Habib Hakim, from Kaz Mini Market in Ashton, was fined £200 after being caught selling vapes to a 16-year-old. It is illegal to sell e-cigarette or vape products to under-18s. Ashton’s town centre is in the midst of a £6.6million revamp using cash allocated by Conservative Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in 2023. The town’s market square is being spruced up, pavements widened and shop fronts improved. It remains to be seen whether the facelift will lead to new prosperity. Among the most beleaguered high street businesses are pubs. Announcing a 20 per cent cut to business rates from April, Burnham called it a “first step” to help landlords. Social clubs and live music venues will also benefit from the tax cut. At the Red Lion in Ashton, boss Jack Duffy, 27, whose family own three other pubs in the area, said of the cut: “It’s not enough to help us. Our costs are astronomical, our energy bill is huge. And people don’t seem to have a lot of money to get out and spend it.” At his chicken shop nearby, Marcin Wysocki, 47, who arrived in Britain from Poland in 2010, believes Burnham is “doing nothing” about declining high streets. The dad-of-two says the PM should close all migrant hotels and invest that cash to help people “who have paid into the system”. No one I met in Ashton pointed to betting shops as the reason for the decline of our high streets. Yet some in the Labour movement want bookies — and even bingo halls — to face more tax. The party’s Brent Council leader Muhammed Butt wrote to Burnham demanding higher business rates for gambling premises. The PM’s attitude to betting shops seems to have shifted since 2020. During Covid, when he was Manchester’s mayor, he told of his concern for “people working in pubs, in bookies, driving taxis, people too often forgotten by those in power”. Back in Ashton’s Betfred, the old friends are discussing the weekend’s racing fixtures at Newbury and Newmarket. Ex-builder Derek insisted: “We’ve only got two bookies in the Ashton centre, so where’s the problem? People don’t have to come in. “It’s not bookies that are ruining everything — it’s the Government.” Comment now