Kick off for Proud of Pubs Week
Proud of Pubs Week kicked off this weekend with the first of more than 100 visits from MPs to pubs taking place over the next few days.
John Denham, who recently joined the Cabinet as Innovation, Universities and Skills Secretary, popped into the Royal Oak in his Southampton constituency as a guest of licensees Alan and Suzie Dreja on Friday evening, while Roger Gale MP has met with licensee Graham Dash at the Prince of Wales in Herne Bay, Kent.
Gale, the MP for North Thanet, described the Prince of Wales as a "lovely pub". "I've never been inside it before - it's Victorian and it seems to have retained many of its original features," he said. "I chatted over a number of issues with Mr Dash."
Running until July 15, Proud of Pubs Week will see MPs including former Tory leader Michael Howard and Sir Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats, taking up the invitation of Publican readers in their constituencies to visit them. Most visits take place this Friday, July 13.
Licensees across the country are being urged to take part in a series of activities during the week, ranging from putting out a questionaire to their community today (Monday), putting on their own Proud of Pubs Night on Tuesday and putting their pub through an energy-saving audit and testing their staff on underage sales on Wednesday.
Thursday sees publicans urged to join a national toast to the nation's barstaff and let The Publican know just what it is that their staff so important to their business.
The event has taken the long-running Proud of Pubs campaign to new heights, with an early day motion tabled in the House of Commons in support of the week by Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland, and the Conservative leader in the Welsh Assembly Nick Bourne tabling a similar motion this week - both unprompted by The Publican.
A Proud of Pubs Week group is growing rapidly on social networking site Facebook.com, while earlier this month a Proud of Pubs Ale, brewed by The Publican team in conjunction with brewer Everards to celebrate the week, went on sale in pubs.
