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News Article Comments : If the tie goes, regionals suffer
Members of Parliament aren’t flavour of the month at present and you’d think they would engage their brains before opening their mouths and uttering total nonsense.
And yet there was one MP, in a brief debate on the tie, telling the Commons that “the tied house system should have gone out with the Corn Laws”.
How about a little historical accuracy? The tied house system didn’t exist at the time of the Corn Laws. An act of 1815 cut back on the import of corn in an attempt to help British farmers and to restrict the manufacture of gin, which was cheap and causing social havoc; one sign outside a London gin shop declared “Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence”.
The Beer Act of 1830 was introduced to counter what MPs at the time thought were two evils: cheap gin and the power of licensing magistrates to control the supply of liquor. MPs wanted to break the stranglehold of the magistrates and encourage the consumption of healthy beer rather than gut-rot gin.
The act allowed any ho
63 Posts(s) found for this thread: Now displaying page 6 of 7
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Edward Compton 11/05/2009 23:38:20  |
If the tie goes, regionals suffer Mr Dodds, I believe I have given you earlier answers to your challenges to my own arguments, which have been based on my analysis of the situation based on this and other markets. It seems to me you call my views prejudices because they do not concur with your own. That confirms to me you tend to resort to personal slight when backed into a corner on argument. That is not a sound basis for informed debate and suggests you know the weaknesses in your own argument. You seem to base your analysis on the view that ending a system that has been in existence for decades and transforming the ownership structure of over half the current businesses in the market is a mere trifle that will hardly be noticed like, for example, denationalisation of the railways? I don't think that is an analysis that stands up to rational examamination. Surely it would be better to admit it will be a very significant change (otherwise, why invest the emotional energy you are clearly doing) and then engage in an honest debate about what that future really looks like. This post replies to J Mark Dodds > If the tie goes, regionals suffer |
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| Edward Compton 11/05/2009 23:56:06 |
If the tie goes, regionals suffer Ms Ward, The answer to that question is quite strightforward, because a pubco is one business negotiatiing with its suppliers. Individual pubs, as individual businesses, gouping together to agree terms of trade is collusion. Under competition law they are obliged to compete, not form cartels. This post replies to Inez Ward > If the tie goes, regionals suffer |
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peter giles 12/05/2009 00:58:04 |
If the tie goes, regionals suffer So their is no collusion between the pubcos? so how is it they raise prices by the same amounts at the same time? you would have thought one of them would get a better deal than the others if they were negotiating seperatly and pass it on to their tenants.you used the word <stop>****</stop> so what would you say the pubcos and breweries are? This post replies to Edward Compton > If the tie goes, regionals suffer |
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Stephen Docking 12/05/2009 02:02:58 |
If the tie goes, regionals suffer Pity the competition law couldn't do anything about "complex monopoly" delivery system of the "big three" distributors. It would be a straight monopoly if there were only two of them. This post replies to Edward Compton > If the tie goes, regionals suffer |
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| Inez Ward 12/05/2009 08:56:21 |
If the tie goes, regionals suffer Mr Compton, a buying group ran as a singular business, one business negotiating with it's suppliers, who in turn supplies it's customers. No agreeing terms of trade, no collusion, no <stop>****</stop>. This post replies to Edward Compton > If the tie goes, regionals suffer |
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| J Mark Dodds 12/05/2009 10:18:17 |
If the tie goes, regionals suffer On the contrary Edward; it is YOU who is confirming by your bleak stubbornness just how weak YOUR position is... I'd recommend you not to go there (although it's a bit after your horse has bolted) because irony is not your strength, your rhetoric is transparent and your 'arguments' are based, as you put it, on your own prejudices and narrow agenda to sustain what is rapidly becoming a comprehensively discredited status quo: the tied pub sector. A declaration of self interest on your part would be revealing because no one could conceivably put forward the fluff you're coming out with unless you are one or more of the following: 1) an employee of a pubco 2) employed in an associated profession, perhaps with a RICS qualification 3) having your trousers filled with the pubco pound 4) clinically delusional You're suggesting that I'm backed into a corner or that I have no sound basis from which I can conduct informed debate. Well Edward reflect on this: Fair Pint, including me, put out information and positions about the factual behaviour and activity of pubcos which is then thoroughly researched and inspected in the smallest detail by lawyers, cleared and substantially reported in the mainstream press in media ranging from the Financial Times and Despatches to The Sun and Daily Express. If you think these arguments are based on shaky ground and you believe I am concerned about weaknesses in Fair Pint's position then why not write to FT, the other broadsheets, tabloids and television with your indignation and see if you get any of the rubbish you're promoting published there? Good luck. I wish you well in your doomed mission. edited by: J Mark Dodds at: 12/05/2009 10:18:42 This post replies to Edward Compton > If the tie goes, regionals suffer |
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| Edward Compton 12/05/2009 10:24:26 |
If the tie goes, regionals suffer Mr Dodds, Your default resort to personal insult does you little credit. It might equally be submitted that your own arguments are based purely on "your own prejudices and narrow agenda". Indeed, your preference for overly-emotive assertion rather than mature debate self-evidently supports such a submission. The ability to generate media news stories is not a confirmation of an abiding truth. It is relatively straightforward to generate media coverage for a position, particularly an anti-establishment position. It is the job of news journalists to present conflicting positions on issues - the more conflicting the better. Even within the news coverage you cite, the media have carried the counter argument. So just as much coverage has been given to positions counter to your own. So I don't need to write, it's already been published. Indeed if media coverage was the measure of absolute truth, then clealry the cause of the current crisis in the pub sector is tax, because that story has dominated the media agenda on the pub sector for many months and attracted considerably more media coverage than the issue of the tie. This post replies to J Mark Dodds > If the tie goes, regionals suffer |
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| J Mark Dodds 12/05/2009 11:11:01 |
If the tie goes, regionals suffer Edward. You seem to regard any form of response to your posts a personal attack. That's not my problem. The point I made about published articles is obvious but to labour the point you are wilfully missing. Coverage of the pubco debate has been mostly in financial pages, under the watchful gaze of notoriously powerful pubcos whose litigious nature is well known. In these circumstances journalists do not take any chances of laying themselves open to libel - action which could easily end ther career if their facts are not utterly solid. Newspapers will only write negative reports on pubcos if they have rock solid facts and figures as their basis. Since you think getting press coverage is easy peasy lemon squeezy why not take some of your arguments to a few journalists and see how close to publication you get? edited by: J Mark Dodds at: 12/05/2009 11:11:30 This post replies to Edward Compton > If the tie goes, regionals suffer |
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| kevin o'connor 12/05/2009 11:11:01 |
If the tie goes, regionals suffer What competition law is being broken? There are many buying groups in many fields of commerce. Selling groups that rig the market are the ones breaking the law This post replies to this thread |
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| kevin o'connor 12/05/2009 11:11:01 |
If the tie goes, regionals suffer What competition law is being broken? There are many buying groups in many fields of commerce. Selling groups that rig the market are the ones breaking the law This post replies to this thread |
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