Backs against the wall: Time to fight

A black week indeed for the trade. Pub closures accelerating. Beer prices rising. Downpours. Flooding. And with an economy still on its knees, absolutely no sign of any respite for desperate licensees everywhere.

When you throw in the deepening fears that alcohol regulation is about to get even tougher, it's easy to get sucked into the trade's favourite new conspiracy theory: namely, Government is delighted if pubs decline and fall because home drinking takes so much less policing and causes so much less mess.

That's probably a bit too much paranoia, even for as awful a bunch of politicians as the current shower. But can you think of a single measure the Government's taken in the past few years that has helped pubs? The 2005 Licensing Act was originally intended to free up the licensed trade and let it operate more entrepreneurially. As we know to our bitter cost, it got hijacked in committee by the Home Office and became instead an instrument of draconian control, which over-bearing local authorities use to hammer us with.

The smoking ban? Hardly. Some pubs have benefited — and the MA stands by its belief it was the right thing to do, even though we'd have preferred self-regulated smoking rooms — but it's clear the majority of pubs hate the ban with a vengeance for what it's done to their trade.

And that's it, as far as "pro-pub" measures are concerned. Beyond that, it's been a steady diet of increased duty, with inflation-busting rises promised over the next four years, plus more and more EC-driven controls and restrictions, and taxes on empty properties and energy usage.

Our trade bodies are clearly out of favour in Whitehall — and for all their hard work, are clearly in a losing battle against people who don't want to listen.

This is not unusual for industry bodies. Unless your trade has real muscle and can damage Government — doctors, power companies, bankers — it's rare to get a result just by rational argument or even pleading.

To fight the duty hikes, to get rate relief, to defeat the health fanatics, to lift the industry gloom we must either offer Government something it wants, or threaten it with something it fears.

Promising to deliver the total eradication of social disorder is impossible — but taming the supermarket discounters would be a massive step towards it. So let's make that an offer: ban below-cost sales and we'll take responsible drinking to new heights.

But let's also go on the attack. Let's threaten to strain every sinew to get this Government booted out at the earliest opportunity. Let's mobilise pub customers against them. Let's advertise how much damage they're doing to this country's heritage. In the words of Corporal Jones, they won't like it up 'em. Come on: isn't it about time we fought back?