To show that tight fisted entrepeneurs can still make money in England.
Also … Mr Watts seems to have spent a fair amount of time doing some decent research for this piece, an unusual occurrence on UnHerd.
Well the story seemed to cover his origins and difficulty in life and how he made something of it, then how his hotels seem to be run down, and then how the government uses them at our expense to house immigrants. Hence my question about the point. Should we admire him, castigate him, or damn the government for its immigration program and how they spend our money.
Just make up your own mind. That is why it’s such a good piece of (independent) journalism. He’s not hectoring or telling you what you should think.
Andrew R
2 months ago
A metaphor for modern Britain.
Point of Information
2 months ago
Interesting article, thank you.
I wondered whether Brittania had any connection to the Grand Burstin, which is a decaying 1970s hotel in the shape of a cross-channel ferry, whose poor condition mars the revived seafront at Folkestone. It is newsworthy for being claimed by Which to be the worst hotel in Britain. I was surprised – perhaps I shouldn’t have been – to find Brittania is the direct owner. I’d have thought the management would at least try to hide this national embarassment behind a shell company.
ian Jeffcott
2 months ago
Its 25 years since I worked in Liverpool. The hotel had two floors of DHSS clients in residence then. The Adelphi was a dump when I last stayed there in the late 90s.
A well upholstered young woman who worked with me was banned for life from Pontins in Prestatyn for streaking. An even more dreadful place.
CF Hankinson
2 months ago
I think this is very interesting. Of course people would like a simpler moral and ethical narrative. And I am utterly puzzled as to where asylum seekers are to be housed under this government, processing won’t be overnight will it?
It raises so many questions, so long avoided. Thanks.
might I add I think it is a horror story in case that got missed its just hard to see where to unravel it and cast the blame. My daughter in law’s family booked the Brittania in Manchester for my son’s wedding…because of the photo opportunities of the fabulous staircase etc.. it was absolutely appalling, dirty, a nightmare I have been trying to forget it. And as for the ‘lives alone in 10 bedroom mansion that had been a hotel’ well I don’t believe he’s rattling around alone in that sprawling mansion with many outbuildings set in the Cheshire countryside… I bet it houses quite a few staff! (housekeeper, chauffeur gardeners…) It reminded me of Evelyns Waugh’s opening of Handful of Dust “Anyone hurt? No thank goodness, just two housemaids who jumped to their deaths from the first floor” .
Back in the mid-80s there was always an A-frame sign outside the Brittania in city-centre Manchester offering rooms for £9. There was only one available at that price!
He opened Sacha’s Hotel nearby in a converted department store, the majority of rooms having no windows, though I was told they each had a wall decoration depicting a window and view beyond!
He specialises in acquiring hotels sold off by chain operators no longer prepared to invest in the radical refurbishment required: PostHouses, Thistle etc.
Use facial recognition technology to track down marchers with ‘refugees welcome here’ placards, and requisition their spare rooms and sofas. Job done.
.
.
.
Off to the gulag for re-education for you!
(On Stalin’s death 200,000 of the Gulag’s 2.5m population were there for telling jokes according to Solzhenitsyn)
puzzled as to where asylum seekers are to be housed under this government, processing won’t be overnight will it?
No it won’t be overnight but it will be fast under this government. Once their status is regularised they will cease to be the Home Office’s problem and become the responsibility of the local council wherever they happen to be.
The cost of housing them won’t be national, it will fall on local council tax payers. That is why Angela Rayner wants to distribute them evenly across every constituency in the land.
Re the Jordanian asylum seeker: that was going to be my comment, if only this site would let me comment, as a subscribers. Why should I have to go through the whole “I’m not a robot” rubbish?
“Sami’s parents are still in Jordan and have been transferring money to him while he waits to hear if he will be granted indefinite leave to remain. “There are times when I have £60 to last the month.”
I strongly suspect that when (not if) Sami gets given indefinite leave to remain by Labour, probably followed by citizenship, many of his extended family will follow him to the UK under reunification rights etc.
Yes, thanks. I had read the bit about his parents but my question still stands; why is he a refugee here?
Is he a fugitive from justice, a draft-dodger or a political dissident?
Jordan is a friendly country, we co-operate on security, so what’s this refugee doing?
I totally agree with you, it’s sickening the abuse of the system that cost the UK government, and ultimately taxpayers, a huge amount of money. A Jordanian asylum seeker. Did the interviewer not think to ask on what grounds this man seeks asylum in the UK? It would enlighten Unherd readers.
Without such information, it just comes across as yet another abuse of our generosity.
UnHerd Reader
2 months ago
Not unlike Rackman in the 60s in some ways.
Simon Blanchard
2 months ago
Interesting piece. Good, solid, well balanced journalism. Couldn’t help thinking of Mr Burns.
Sean Lothmore
2 months ago
A couple of years ago we stayed at Bosworth Manor, a Britannia hotel. It was a very good price, the room was acceptable. There was a nice pool, dinner and breakfast were good, the staff were friendly, the grounds were attractive. Just throwing that in there.
Interesting. Britannia has also been buying and running ex-Mariott golf resorts such as Meon Valley in Hampshire and Sprowston Manor in Norwich.
Santiago Saefjord
2 months ago
The irony in this:
“A sign on a railing commands passers-by to “stop attacks” by not feeding the birds”
J Dunne
2 months ago
Here in Manchester where his hotel chain started, the Britannia and Post House used to be decent three star hotels. Now all of them, particularly Sachas, are a huge source of amusement as countless visitors stay in them and are horrified at just how bad they are. Sachas is now a Manchester institution, based purely on its comic awfulness.
Dougie Undersub
2 months ago
The sister of a friend owns two Holiday Inn Express hotels in the North, one of which now houses asylum seekers. My friend tells me it’s not a great money-spinner: she gets £79 per day for each 2-person room.
Apparently, it’s the agencies that find and book the accommodation for the Home Office that are making loads of money.
Serco: “From border control and detention centres to housing and welfare support, we are committed to helping the UK Government protect borders while sensitively manage those going through the immigration process..”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it a conflict of interest to have a company that is making money from “controlling the borders” also making money from those they “miss”? Are there members of the government or civil service on their board?, ecause this looks like a money spinner.
Home Office spending records show a smaller firm, Calder Conferences, received £20.6m in payments from the Home Office in 2021 to book hotels. That figure increased to £97m in 2022.
Calder’s director, Debbie Hoban, saw her annual remuneration increase from £230,000 to £2.2m.
Alex Lekas
2 months ago
If the following does not encapsulate the current problem, then nothing does: “For many years his chain has earned well from Home Office contracts to house and feed asylum seekers. For which reason, the British tabloids have christened him the “Asylum King”.
The tabloids and others in the press are more worried about who benefits from the grift than about the political decisions and officials who make it possible. It would seem the admonition about not feeding the birds would be better located in Westminster than outside a crumbling hotel.
Patricia Hardman
2 months ago
He continues to be very grateful to the UK for saving their lives..
I couldn’t say what will happen to his fortune when he dies but I suspect it will all go to charities that help others who have suffered from tragedy in their lives.
Why wait until he’s dead, what a great philanthropist he could be if he downsized and invested his money in a charitable foundation now.
peter lucey
2 months ago
I’ve stayed in the Grand, Scarborough some years ago. (On my annual pilgrimage to Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s new plays, at the gorgeous Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough).
A single with shower/loo from £30 per night was fine. (Room only – I wouldn’t eat there, and Wetherspoons was a short walk for breakfast).View of the beach, too, if opening the window annoyed the nesting seagulls
Lager at £3 a pint happy hour, and you could sit on the huge terrace and try to imagine it when it was a fashionable Victorian Spa
But what would you do with the old Grand? Heaven knows what a refurb would cost and I expect it is a listed building – and too big for the demand nowadays.
Samuel Ross
2 months ago
This was a fine article about a (seemingly) fine man. At least, I don’t know otherwise, and he’s certainly worked hard and presumably provided good value (relatively speaking) to a lot of people. It’s sad (I feel) that he has no children and his life’s work will now be passed on to strangers, but that’s how it is sometimes. Perhaps someone else can take up his mantle and continue where he left off ….
Ex Nihilo
2 months ago
“He continues to be very grateful to the UK for saving their lives”
Seems like he has chosen a quite shabby way to demonstrate his gratitude.
David Frost
2 months ago
Langsams family fled Austria ( or were pushed out) and came here poor but worked hard and prospered
How many of the occupants I these hotels will work hard and prosper? How many left behind great fortunes to start again? How many have nothing but are relying on the graft of others to get their money ?
Sounds like liberal excuses again, military aged men coming here to wait for a sign?
kidelmark
1 month ago
An interesting piece, well-researched. I was delighted to hear more about Britannia hotels as it reminded me of the very worst hotel night I have ever spent anywhere in the UK. At the Britannia in Birmingham about 10 years ago. The rooms we were allocated were situated at the end of a set of labyrinthin corridors. and they had no windows at all, onle one fake “window” had not glass but a window frame stuck onto a brick wall. I could not believe it. Clearly whatever people are saying in the commetns in praise of this hard-working refugee, takes no account ot the rip-off nature of his enterprise.
William Cameron
1 month ago
“Sami’s parents are still in Jordan” Query If Sami is from Jordan how can he be a refugee ?
Main Edition
US
FR
“Langsam” means “slow” in German. Not really relevant, just thought I’d throw that out there.
What is the point of this story?
An attempt to lift the morale of the nation?
How we’ve been sold out and people are making a profit from it?
How have you been sold out?
To show that tight fisted entrepeneurs can still make money in England.
Also … Mr Watts seems to have spent a fair amount of time doing some decent research for this piece, an unusual occurrence on UnHerd.
Well the story seemed to cover his origins and difficulty in life and how he made something of it, then how his hotels seem to be run down, and then how the government uses them at our expense to house immigrants. Hence my question about the point. Should we admire him, castigate him, or damn the government for its immigration program and how they spend our money.
Just make up your own mind. That is why it’s such a good piece of (independent) journalism. He’s not hectoring or telling you what you should think.
A metaphor for modern Britain.
Interesting article, thank you.
I wondered whether Brittania had any connection to the Grand Burstin, which is a decaying 1970s hotel in the shape of a cross-channel ferry, whose poor condition mars the revived seafront at Folkestone. It is newsworthy for being claimed by Which to be the worst hotel in Britain. I was surprised – perhaps I shouldn’t have been – to find Brittania is the direct owner. I’d have thought the management would at least try to hide this national embarassment behind a shell company.
Its 25 years since I worked in Liverpool. The hotel had two floors of DHSS clients in residence then. The Adelphi was a dump when I last stayed there in the late 90s.
A well upholstered young woman who worked with me was banned for life from Pontins in Prestatyn for streaking. An even more dreadful place.
I think this is very interesting. Of course people would like a simpler moral and ethical narrative. And I am utterly puzzled as to where asylum seekers are to be housed under this government, processing won’t be overnight will it?
It raises so many questions, so long avoided. Thanks.
might I add I think it is a horror story in case that got missed its just hard to see where to unravel it and cast the blame. My daughter in law’s family booked the Brittania in Manchester for my son’s wedding…because of the photo opportunities of the fabulous staircase etc.. it was absolutely appalling, dirty, a nightmare I have been trying to forget it. And as for the ‘lives alone in 10 bedroom mansion that had been a hotel’ well I don’t believe he’s rattling around alone in that sprawling mansion with many outbuildings set in the Cheshire countryside… I bet it houses quite a few staff! (housekeeper, chauffeur gardeners…) It reminded me of Evelyns Waugh’s opening of Handful of Dust “Anyone hurt? No thank goodness, just two housemaids who jumped to their deaths from the first floor” .
Back in the mid-80s there was always an A-frame sign outside the Brittania in city-centre Manchester offering rooms for £9. There was only one available at that price!
He opened Sacha’s Hotel nearby in a converted department store, the majority of rooms having no windows, though I was told they each had a wall decoration depicting a window and view beyond!
He specialises in acquiring hotels sold off by chain operators no longer prepared to invest in the radical refurbishment required: PostHouses, Thistle etc.
Didn’t they go check before they booked it?
Use facial recognition technology to track down marchers with ‘refugees welcome here’ placards, and requisition their spare rooms and sofas. Job done.
.
.
.
To be clear, that was meant to be sarcasm.
Sarcasm or not, it sounds like a good idea. The middle & upper classes rarely suffer from their virtue signaling.
Off to the gulag for re-education for you!
(On Stalin’s death 200,000 of the Gulag’s 2.5m population were there for telling jokes according to Solzhenitsyn)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/11/want-to-help-refugees-but-not-sure-how-i-found-a-surprisingly-simple-answer
Maybe they are already doing that via https://refugeesathome.org/
Good for them if they want to do it. But many people want to be generous at everyone else’s expense.
No it won’t be overnight but it will be fast under this government. Once their status is regularised they will cease to be the Home Office’s problem and become the responsibility of the local council wherever they happen to be.
The cost of housing them won’t be national, it will fall on local council tax payers. That is why Angela Rayner wants to distribute them evenly across every constituency in the land.
.
Re the Jordanian asylum seeker: that was going to be my comment, if only this site would let me comment, as a subscribers. Why should I have to go through the whole “I’m not a robot” rubbish?
“Sami’s parents are still in Jordan and have been transferring money to him while he waits to hear if he will be granted indefinite leave to remain. “There are times when I have £60 to last the month.”
I strongly suspect that when (not if) Sami gets given indefinite leave to remain by Labour, probably followed by citizenship, many of his extended family will follow him to the UK under reunification rights etc.
Yes, thanks. I had read the bit about his parents but my question still stands; why is he a refugee here?
Is he a fugitive from justice, a draft-dodger or a political dissident?
Jordan is a friendly country, we co-operate on security, so what’s this refugee doing?
I totally agree with you, it’s sickening the abuse of the system that cost the UK government, and ultimately taxpayers, a huge amount of money. A Jordanian asylum seeker. Did the interviewer not think to ask on what grounds this man seeks asylum in the UK? It would enlighten Unherd readers.
Without such information, it just comes across as yet another abuse of our generosity.
Not unlike Rackman in the 60s in some ways.
Interesting piece. Good, solid, well balanced journalism. Couldn’t help thinking of Mr Burns.
A couple of years ago we stayed at Bosworth Manor, a Britannia hotel. It was a very good price, the room was acceptable. There was a nice pool, dinner and breakfast were good, the staff were friendly, the grounds were attractive. Just throwing that in there.
Interesting. Britannia has also been buying and running ex-Mariott golf resorts such as Meon Valley in Hampshire and Sprowston Manor in Norwich.
The irony in this:
“A sign on a railing commands passers-by to “stop attacks” by not feeding the birds”
Here in Manchester where his hotel chain started, the Britannia and Post House used to be decent three star hotels. Now all of them, particularly Sachas, are a huge source of amusement as countless visitors stay in them and are horrified at just how bad they are. Sachas is now a Manchester institution, based purely on its comic awfulness.
The sister of a friend owns two Holiday Inn Express hotels in the North, one of which now houses asylum seekers. My friend tells me it’s not a great money-spinner: she gets £79 per day for each 2-person room.
Apparently, it’s the agencies that find and book the accommodation for the Home Office that are making loads of money.
Serco: “From border control and detention centres to housing and welfare support, we are committed to helping the UK Government protect borders while sensitively manage those going through the immigration process..”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it a conflict of interest to have a company that is making money from “controlling the borders” also making money from those they “miss”? Are there members of the government or civil service on their board?, ecause this looks like a money spinner.
The BBC knew that as far back as March 2023;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64991234
I quote;
If the following does not encapsulate the current problem, then nothing does: “For many years his chain has earned well from Home Office contracts to house and feed asylum seekers. For which reason, the British tabloids have christened him the “Asylum King”.
The tabloids and others in the press are more worried about who benefits from the grift than about the political decisions and officials who make it possible. It would seem the admonition about not feeding the birds would be better located in Westminster than outside a crumbling hotel.
Why wait until he’s dead, what a great philanthropist he could be if he downsized and invested his money in a charitable foundation now.
I’ve stayed in the Grand, Scarborough some years ago. (On my annual pilgrimage to Sir Alan Ayckbourn’s new plays, at the gorgeous Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough).
A single with shower/loo from £30 per night was fine. (Room only – I wouldn’t eat there, and Wetherspoons was a short walk for breakfast).View of the beach, too, if opening the window annoyed the nesting seagulls
Lager at £3 a pint happy hour, and you could sit on the huge terrace and try to imagine it when it was a fashionable Victorian Spa
But what would you do with the old Grand? Heaven knows what a refurb would cost and I expect it is a listed building – and too big for the demand nowadays.
This was a fine article about a (seemingly) fine man. At least, I don’t know otherwise, and he’s certainly worked hard and presumably provided good value (relatively speaking) to a lot of people. It’s sad (I feel) that he has no children and his life’s work will now be passed on to strangers, but that’s how it is sometimes. Perhaps someone else can take up his mantle and continue where he left off ….
“He continues to be very grateful to the UK for saving their lives”
Seems like he has chosen a quite shabby way to demonstrate his gratitude.
Langsams family fled Austria ( or were pushed out) and came here poor but worked hard and prospered
How many of the occupants I these hotels will work hard and prosper? How many left behind great fortunes to start again? How many have nothing but are relying on the graft of others to get their money ?
Sounds like liberal excuses again, military aged men coming here to wait for a sign?
An interesting piece, well-researched. I was delighted to hear more about Britannia hotels as it reminded me of the very worst hotel night I have ever spent anywhere in the UK. At the Britannia in Birmingham about 10 years ago. The rooms we were allocated were situated at the end of a set of labyrinthin corridors. and they had no windows at all, onle one fake “window” had not glass but a window frame stuck onto a brick wall. I could not believe it. Clearly whatever people are saying in the commetns in praise of this hard-working refugee, takes no account ot the rip-off nature of his enterprise.
“Sami’s parents are still in Jordan” Query If Sami is from Jordan how can he be a refugee ?