Monday 11 May 2009

Your Business? None Of Your Business


I'm buggered if I can find it in the mire of Wordpress, but Leg-Iron once wrote at length about why you should never issue an apology to the righteous. They see it as a weakness and will use it against you. And he is quite correct.

Sure as night follows day, once the precedent has been set that government can dictate what is allowed to be permitted in a pub, the next step will be to tell the pub exactly how to progress its business.

Come on, Dick, you're fantasising, surely? Not really, no. Think again.

Alcohol expert calls for Liverpool pubs to be replaced with cafes

BARS should be replaced by cafes and restaurants in Liverpool city centre to tackle a binge-drinking crisis, MPs were told.

A health expert who studies the effects of excessive drinking in the city identified the explosion in the number of pubs and clubs as the key factor.

Dr Lynn Owens called for the city centre to be “redesigned” to tempt a wider range of people than simply “young people binge drinking”.

Where does one start with this? There isn't mention of any pub owner being consulted on the matter of 'redesigning' their business. No mention of the willing customers who are, without doubt, the reason for the 'explosion' in the number of outlets catering for them.

Merely the righteous deciding what is best for us and eager to ride roughshod over the wishes of the business owners, and customers, to achieve their perfect ideology.

You see, they got away with it before and now see pubs as their little toy.

The BBPA don't have a clue how to fight, they just mumble, and CAMRA are so fucking useless as to be irrelevant. They would probably back this idea too, their heads being so stuck up their own backsides that their woolly cardigan collars are chafing their rings.

One would hope that the pub spokesmen, in a period of unmitigated disaster for the industry, would at least object to a "nurse consultant with Liverpool primary care trust (PCT)" being described as an 'alcohol expert' over and above they who purport to represent the hospitality trade. They won't, though. They will continue to lobby a government which is pre-disposed to ignoring their every word (the budget should have shown them that), in the faint hope that they might be listened to. Unfortunately, it's too late.

They said sorry, see? They admitted wrong-doing and backed the righteous in their endeavours. They're not in the game anymore. Who needs a spokesperson for pubs when the righteous have appointed their own?




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