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Mark, As an independent free of tie operator my comments were to free of tie operators and not intentionally directed at those who are tied for packaged beers. I would not not want to encourage anyone to break the terms of any lease agreements. Maybe you could tell your pub co to go and buy their Becks from Tescos and pass on some savings as I would bet they are maybe also paying a higher price than the general public. Come the revolution when Gordon quits/is fired/is voted out,  the next government hopefully will see what is happening to this fine country and our great industry and do something positive for once. Michael Kheng - kurnia.co.uk

Yet again the media frenzy against the industry takes hold. What's needs to be highlighted is the fact that if wine is sold by the bottle then what does the size of the glass matter? Will we soon be told that we must start serving beer in halfs and not pints? Are there really that many people out there abusing alcohol by drinking wine? Funny, nothing mentioned about the giant Tesco selling 75cl wine glasses for people to take home and dink a bottle of wine in one glass!! Michael Kheng FBII - kurnia.co.uk

Why is it that the trade predicted that the Off Trade trade would ignor any increases and that only the On Trade and the Off Trade customers would suffer. One day the government will enter into the world of reality and start listening to what is said and reading what is presented. Michael Kheng - www.kurnia.co.uk    

Can anyone tell me if I've got it all wrong.... Chris, quite right. On higher ABVs the increase will be higher. Will any of the national press pick up on this? They have not in the past so no reason why they should now. Mr Daily Mail reader will be in next week expecting a 4p rise and anything above will trigger another Daily Mail anti pub campaign. Maybe we should produce an explaination poster which illustrates that 4p is not 4p and is fact a lot lot more than 4p. I think if I was in Camerons shoes it's a statement I would make, although if Cameron made such a statement come the revolution when the Conservatives get back in it will only come back and haunt them when their chancellor does the same. Michael Kheng FBII - kurnia.co.uk  

A big WELL DONE to new labour! Once again let's send out a message that we are doing something about the problems surrounding binge drinking, or at least let's send out any single that we can say will combat binge drinking. In 12 months time when pubs have closed due to increases in costs and the good old return of the 'booze cruise' what will new Labour say then? Nothing I guess as they will be using another smoke screen somewhere else. It seems to me that Mr ASDA and Mr Tesco have something going with our 'Darling' chancellor. Maybe it's something along the lines of 'Look Darling we make so much profit that we have to pay the government lot's of tax. If you do anything to affect our trade then the government will lose out. Make a statement that hits the pubs, not us'. All this budget is going to do is to encourage more to buy that cheap alcohol before coming out, thus encouraging bindge drinking and leaving the trade. yet again, to clean up the mess when after drinking the cheap alcohol they try and enter our controlled, properly run establishments, only for us, the responsible operators, to refuse service t them and turn them away. Bring in a law that prevents anyone under 21 being able to purchase alcohol in the off trade is what I say. Tackle the problem in the correct manner. I would love to have Darling and Brown visit a town where we have an outlet so they can see what it's actually like in the real world. I often feel they live in some sort of magic bubble in the City. They sure as hell cannot be in touch with the real world. They don't listen to, or read, what is presented to them, unless that is your name is Mr Tesco or Mr ASDA or similar. As if the industry was not already having problems. I wonder what will be proposed next? Michael Kheng FBII - kurnia.co.uk