Dr Cable & Co Promise But Don't Deliver!

A SHEER UNADULTERATED FLANNEL !

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, Willot and 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, the task of Government’s business department 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 are now. The beer tie was to blame then and nothing has changed 25 years later. 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 and 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
June 2014

24 Hours to prove I’m not a troll!

24 Hours to prove I’m not a troll!

Nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to UK brewers and pubcos - I’ve been around too long to let their nonsense slip by unnoticed. Sadly, some still fall for their crap and Propel journo Martyn Cornell seems to be one of them.

Last Friday Martyn and I got into an argument on twitter after I called his pro pubco article on the recent London Economics report on pubs inaccurate and delusional. He didn’t like it of course and  gave me 24 to prove the report wrong or else become a zythopilliac troll.

Here is the tweet exchange and my email to Martyn below,

Steve Corbett ‏@SteveC271220 Dec

More inaccurate, delusional gumph from @zythophiliac who feels important as he continues to scrape of few crumbs of the pubco table.

                                                               

Martyn Cornell‏@zythophiliac

@SteveC2712 "inaccurate, delusional gumph" isn't feedback, without evidence to back that claim it's just you indulging in knee-jerk trolling

Steve Corbett ‏@SteveC271220 Dec

@zythophiliac claims of "Trolling" are usually the first line of defence for those who know their in the wrong.

Martyn Cornell ‏@zythophiliac20 Dec

@SteveC2712 Right, Steve - send me a list of my inaccuracies and delusions. I'll give you 24 hours. Otherwise you're just trolling.

Martin

Only 24 hours to supply you with rebuttal evidence or I become a troll? A little harsh don’t you think Martin? The Fair Pint team are beavering away on the LE rebuttal document as we speak – it’s a tad too long at the moment but it should be good to go shortly. Once complete I’ll send you a copy. BIS officials broke up for the hols a couple of days ago so there’s no point rushing it off.

I note that you’re a beer historian so I expect you have some experience of the sector. I think we can all lay some claim to experience of one sort or another. It’s not the experience of the people in it that enrich a particular sector but more how we choose to apply it and whether, despite the opinions we form as a result of our experience, we can continue to develop and learn from the experiences we continue to have and the new information that comes to hand. Part of that process is understanding and accepting criticism. I’ve always known that unpalatable views, delivered to us by people we might not like, can still be right.

So where are we now? The consultation has turned into a farce if I’m truthful, the BBPA had a game plan as they continue to play games with some inexperienced BIS officials. The LE reports a shocker, full of inaccuracies and guess work, all supplied and rubberstamped by the BBPA. Their plan in 3 parts was:

1                    Manipulate the consultation

2                    Avoid a statutory code

3                    Go skiing.

So how did they get on? Their plan was to get the RICS back on track – which was always going to happen because of the conflicts within the TRVG – squeeze the FLVA to say more fluffy nonsense - get the ALMR on the firm and cherry pick as many tenants and brewers to hand write glowing testimonials.  All of that would give them a chance of scoring some points with the usual damaging tosh about self-regulated codes of practice. Once achieved the game plan was to present the whole sham as a fait accompli and to marginalise other voices pushing for change. It’s embarrassing really.

And then there’s the real world. Pubs still failing at record rates for reasons denied by people causing it and then helped in doing so by people who should know better. The BBPA think it’s all jolly unfair that people with money and dinner parties should be outed as the bullies they really are. Like the idiot who fronts the PMA, I think you’re looking for goodwill where it doesn’t exist. It’s a plausible assumption to expect a high degree of honesty and integrity from those operating public limited companies. That degree of honesty and integrity is lacking in some of the larger pub companies and I would say that there are some in the media, you included, that are naive of these issues. I’ve seen some awful things over the years many include tenants that have been misled. Lies are told about trading histories and tenants are advised that they don’t need legal advice. Punch used to offer to pay for a lawyer to represent the tenant “no changes to the draft lease” were to be made. A great many people have been subjected to this sort of treatment which looks substantially like nothing more than a ‘timeshare’ type scam. Similar methodology seems to have been applied to dealing with investors. As you know, the pubco model was devised largely by people who are no longer connected with the sector and have long since departed with the cash leaving billions that will never be repaid to the bondholders and eye-watering interest bills that suck hundreds of millions out of the sector every year. The model leaves the tenants unable to maintain the building and the pubco cannot afford to either.

As for Fair Pint – we have been rightly critical of so called “leading figures”. In my own view the likes of Ted Tuppen etc are little more than overpaid frontmen for a scam that took place some time ago. The BBPA truly is a risible organisation that has sold its soul to serve the interests of large pubcos and the tie. Its annual rounds of pleading with the treasury, seen once more today, look more and more ludicrous, whilst saving pubs and jobs is given as a reason for the pleading little or nothing will be passed down to publicans. A duty cut and removal of the escalator hasn’t stopped pubs closing so I can’t expect the treasury will fall for that one again.  

All in all it’s a mess Martin. The men that set up the pubcos never had a long term interest in the sector but spotted legal loopholes, the greedy and less intelligent brewers, the naive trade bodies etc. Down at Fair Pint towers we are interested in the root of the industry. The publicans, the customers and the small creative brewers. We want them to succeed. The tie and the anti-competitive, monopolistic mess the pubcos have created make that very uncertain as we all unfortunately know.

Forgive my ramblings. I suspect nothing I say matches the news of Nigella Lawson.

Very best wishes.

S.