Coronavirus: Pubs face struggle after new restrictions as they say 'there's nothing left in the coffers'

It was a joke but one that tells you what people are dreading under these new restrictions.

The people of the Liverpool City region, some 1.5 million of them, are being asked to sacrifice some of the things that many of them live for - the workout in the gym after a stressful day or a pint down the local.

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Yes, they gave them up along with everyone else in March but this time the novelty factor has gone, businesses are already running on fumes having plundered their cash reserves, and the dark cold nights of winter are coming.

The landlord of the Jawbone Tavern, Harry Sandle, has been in the pub game for 35 years and says the decision is "devastating".

"Bootle is already one of the most deprived parts of Europe... people will just have to try and get through it. I don't know how but they will," he said.

"We are just getting to sorting out our bills from the last time and now it's closing again - there's nothing left in the coffers."

He and his staff will be entitled to two thirds of their wages from the government this time around.

"You can't go into Tesco and pay two thirds can you? You can't pay two thirds of the gas bill or the leccy - it doesn't work," he said.

There are no easy answers.

The hospitals are filling up across Merseyside as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rises each day and something has to be done.

But the consensus in the Jawbone was not to attack the government.

"It's hard, we are all in this and the government have to try and save lives but we will all pay for this somehow," Mr Sandle added.

Mass unemployment here in the 1980s is a distant but vivid memory.

Nobody wants to return to those dark days that shattered families and forced some people to abandon this great city in search of work.

The renaissance of Liverpool has been hard fought for over the last 20 years.

People are ready to fight for their businesses to survive but will need help to do it. When the restrictions are imposed by central government, it cannot cut people loose.

Mr Sandle boiled it down to one simple fact that so many people here are grappling with: "You can't live in fresh air - nobody can."