Pret Slaps Down Its Own Founder For Anti-Lockdown Comments
Pret a Manger has distanced itself from its own multi-millionaire founder, Julian Metcalfe, after he urged the government not to introduce another lockdown to save a “few thousand lives”.
Metcalfe – who sold his remaining stake in the coffee chain last year but still owns the majority of high-street restaurant Itsu, where he is the chief exec – prompted an angry response after he told the Daily Mail that “society will not recover if we do it [lockdown] again to save a few thousand lives of very old or vulnerable people”.
“The young people of this country will be paying for this for the next 20 to 30 years. It’s terrible what’s happening. Just because France does this with its socialist government, doesn’t mean we have to.”
Metcalfe’s words came a day after French president Emmanuel Macron announced a four week national lockdown to apply a “brutal brake” on coronavirus infections.
This week the number of people in the UK who have died with 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 passed 45,000 as the country hit a 200-a-day death toll much earlier than experts had predicted.
Pret later tweeted: “We are aware of Julian Metcalfe’s comments this morning, but he has not run the business for over 10 years and we do not agree with his opinion.
We are aware of Julian Metcalfe’s comments this morning, but he has not run the business for over ten years and we do not agree with his opinion.
We at Pret strongly believe we must take steps to stop the spread of the virus and tackle the new wave of infections— Pret (@Pret) October 29, 2020
“We at Pret strongly believe we must take steps to stop the spread of the virus and tackle the new wave of infections.”
Pret has made about 3,200 job cuts since the start of the pandemic, after announcing a significant restructuring in August.
Metcalfe, who is worth £215m, has been outspoken about the Tory party’s approach to coronavirus in the past, in particular singling out prime minister Boris...
