SHEER UNADULTERATED FLANNEL!

In the coming weeks Government will publish its response to the pub industry consultation. As you can see below I'm not expecting any meaningful change. 

The decline of the pub sector allows a few at the top to continue lining their own pockets and without the transfer of equity back to publicans, the failure of part of Britain's heritage is almost guaranteed. Pubs and publicans deserve a fair share of the profits. Private Equity, via Government, are not going to allow that to happen.

In anticipation:


SHEER UNADULTERATED FLANNEL!                                      September 2013

So in the end Government just couldn't get anything to help tied tenants over the line, despite the countless meetings, press statements and expressions of wishful thinking from Cable, Swinson & co.

Exactly what many feared when Cable declared the inept Ed Davy was wrong has come to pass: a self-proclaimed Minister of business role that was really minister of misinformation. 

Like the idiots who let off flares at football games, Jo Swinson’s task was to create a smokescreen. Provoking all and sundry - be it MP’s or officials - unsettling those already pushing for change and misleading the masses into expecting some positive action to take the industry forward. 

The only tasks Cable and Co don’t look to have achieved yet are in seeing off the rest of the tied tenants and closing down another 20,000 pubs so that the ones left are owned by the cuddly family brewers.

All the talk, all the planning, all the meeting and all the expense culminating in absolutely diddly squat! We should have known really. Perhaps we did.

So the consultation was a complete waste of time and money with the result being all too inevitable. The ridiculous decisions by the OFT should have taught us what to expect. “Don’t worry boys, the money’s safe in our hands, lets continue to take the p*** out of those gullible tied tenants”. You almost want them to be proved right, that's how genuinely screwed up this country is.

For a country obsessed with saving money and reducing head count, there are two quick ways to trim the wage bill: abolish the roles of the Secretary of State for business and Minister for business, on the basis they have no discernible purpose. 

The annoying thing here is that we've seen this all before - and not just with the OFT – the 1989 beer orders were sufficiently watered down when the brewers convinced Maggie that a complete levelling of the playing field wasn’t the right thing to do. They were wrong of course just as they now.

The shortcomings of many previous efforts have been repeated in what may be the ultimate false economy and short-sighted piece of narrow minded non-legislation.

So what do the coming months hold for the Secretary of State? A few more cringeworthy interviews or perhaps a well-earned holiday in the Caymans’.
This window of opportunity may be closed, but the clock is still ticking. Like a set of smalls on a washing line, pubs and publicans have been hung out to dry. And while this all plays out to a sorrowful conclusion over the coming months, the damage done to this industry grows more incalculable - and the body count will undoubtedly mount.

Well done Cable & Co and thanks for nothing. You had your chance and you blew it. At least when the dust settles and we’ve had a chance to survey what’s left of the industry, we’ll know exactly who to blame!

Steve Corbett

6 September 2013