Dominic Walsh: What’s more ludicrous, the 10pm curfew or VAR?

For as long as I’ve been a journalist covering leisure and hospitality (31 years if you must know), the industry has fought, mostly in vain, for recognition in the corridors of power of its importance to the UK economy. While rival industries like aerospace, car manufacturing and financial services seemed to have no problem catching the ear of government (mostly coming under the wing of the big beast departments of Business and the Treasury), hospitality struggled to attract attention, being made the responsibility of the backwater that is DCMS. It didn’t make it into the name of the department – even when it was expanded to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.