Drink-driving limit won't kill rural pubs
"Parliamentary privilege" gives rights to MPs that lesser mortals such as journalists can never enjoy. Last week the Labour MP John Grogan described the boss of Tesco, Terry Leahy, as "the godfather of binge drinking".
I can report that remark as a matter of parliamentary record. But if I had said it in public, Mr Leahy's lawyers would have had me in court faster than you can say "a case of Carling for 10 quid, please."
Mr Grogan, safe inside the House of Commons, made the comment during a debate on the sale of cheap alcohol in supermarkets. This drew a pledge from Government minister Ben Bradshaw to look at the problem next year.
It was a pledge that failed to impress Tory MP David Amess.
"There's no way this Government will take on the supermarkets," he said. "They're hand-in-glove with them." And it would take major surgery to remove the glove.
During the debate, another Tory MP, Michael Penning, commented that unless something is done to tackle monstrous discounting of alcohol by the multiples, many more pubs will close, unable to compete with booze often sold at less than the cost of production.
My daily newspaper has a full-page advertisement from Tesco with the heading "Christmas tipples. Prices toppled." The promotion is for six bottles of single malt whisky, all reduced by 25%. Highland Park is down from £25.97 to £19.47, Glenfiddich from £24.98 to £18.73, Glenmorangie from £25.98 to £19.49, The Glenlivet from £23.97 to £17.97, Talisker from £25.97 to £19.47 and Laphroaig from £24.96 to £18.72.
Wait until Tesco gets started on Christmas wine and beer prices. As the man said, "You ain't seen nothin' yet."
I agree with Michael Penning that it's cheap supermarket booze that is killing the pub. The issue has been overshadowed by the news that the Government is considering reducing the drink-drive limit from 80mg to 50mg.
Many see this as yet another body-blow to
the pub, and the media was much taken with
the views of Stanley Johnson, who is as outspoken and trenchant as his tousled son, Boris Johnson MP.
In a letter to the press, followed by radio interviews, Mr Johnson Senior was of the opinion that a reduction in the drink-drive
limit would kill off many pubs in remote
rural areas.
As he lives on Exmoor, he is more of an expert on remote rural pubs than I am, but I disagree about the impact of the drink-drive laws.
In my experience, people who live in country areas have learned to live with the threat of the breathalyser by taking it in turns to be the driver who spends the evening on orange juice. Many licensees group together to offer a
mini-bus service for customers in country areas.
Rural pubs are closing at a rate of knots because modern pub owners consider outlets at the end of the delivery run, and which sell only a few casks a week, to be not worth the effort. Other outlets close for the obvious reason that it's cheaper to sit at home with a £19 bottle of Tesco's Glenmorangie than make the walk, drive or - as in the splendidly eccentric case of Stanley Johnson - the horse-ride down to the nearest pub.
The north Norfolk village of Stiffkey achieved a grim sort of fame when it lost all three of its pubs. It had nothing to do with the drink-drive laws, and everything to do with the policies of the big London brewer, Watney. It had bought three breweries in Norwich - all of which eventually closed - and then went through Norfolk like Genghis Khan on a bad hair day, closing hundreds of village pubs. Stiffkey lost its cricket, darts and football teams when their pubs went and the village lost its life. Several years later, one pub, the Red Lion, reopened and a local deemed uneconomic by Watney became a flourishing freehouse.
It won't be a reduction in the drink-drive limit that will kill rural pubs but pub owners concerned more with profit than community, along with supermarkets selling booze so cheap you think it's Christmas every day.
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