The big brewer and PubCo dominated British Beer and Pub Association has laid into the Fair Pint Campaign over its assertion that it is high rents and the beer tie that is causing pub closures. It counters that it is increases in tax that is doing the dirty - a somewhat diametrically opposite view. Further it blames Fair Pint for letting the government off the hook on tax in yesterday's budget.
A number of bloggers have commented on the dastardly deeds of the PubCos. The knives are out for them and they know it, hence this water muddying exercise. In their present unequal format they are sucking the lifeblood out of pubs and have been doing so ever since the Beer Orders. Now they recognise they've been rumbled.
PubCos and their apologists can huff and puff, but they are on the retreat and not a moment too soon.
4 hours ago
4 comments:
I've been suggested I should join the BBPA but feel disinclined to do so due to their strong support of the PubCo.
I'm a member of the BII, who seem a less potent but are more friendly to the publican himself.
Perhaps I'm missing something here, but I don't see that "high rents and the beer tie" and "increases in tax" are diametrically opposed when trying to discover the reasons for pub closures. Wage freezes, job cuts, supermarket prices, the increase in wine drinking, etc., must also be factors. But a vested interest is always a good reason to avoid looking at the bigger picture, and you don't get a much bigger vested interest than the PubCos.
RedNev
You are right of course, but this argument isn't about logic. It's politics.
As the Doctor once said, "Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority." Perhaps I should have taken notice.
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