William Lees-Jones: 'Pints, pubs and politicians'

William Lees-Jones is the larger-than-life managing director of JW Lees.

He’s held the role for more than 22 years, growing the 197-year-old family brewer into a £100m turnover business.

He’s helped navigate the company through some of its biggest challenges, including the smoking ban and Covid.

Now he’s gone to war with the Labour government over its controversial inheritance tax reforms.

“When I became MD we had 172 pubs,” he told the Northern Leaders podcast. “We now have 138 but we’ve sold 124. Pretty much everything has changed.”

The 60-year-old says he’ll never forget the impact of Covid and the day in 2020 when Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the country into lockdown.

“It was everybody’s worst nightmare,” he said. “I went to six of our pubs on the way home  ...