Hamish Champ: Can people please make up their minds on the issue of pub closures?

Alright, calm down, it's only a bloody headline. I'm the last person to be calling for pub closures.

We all know the problems facing many pubs. And last week's TV, radio and press coverage of the issues - and the publicity surrounding the ministerial/industry shindig at Westminster - suggested the rest of the world is at last starting to sit up and take notice.

"Not before time!", I can hear you cry, and I'd wholeheartedly agree with you.

But I find some aspects of the debate over pub closures puzzling. After all, not everyone rails against there being fewer boozers in the UK.

For as long as I've been a member of The Publican​'s editorial team I've heard the argument that the UK is 'over-pubbed', that there are simply too many to satisfy demand in these hospitality-conscious times.

Even Shepherd Neame's Jonathan Neame - no slouch when it comes to highlighting the social, cultural and economic contribution pubs make to this country - has suggested in the past there should be a few thousand fewer pubs in the UK.

Confusing? Just a tad.

Neame's not alone in his view though; many in the City agree with him, although it's fair to say the Square Mile Boys tend to see the industry in a different way from, say, the scion of a family-owned regional brewer.

The argument goes that in a contracted market there will be fewer, but better operated pubs which will do well, the spending public having voted with their presence and their wallets. And if such a scenario were to arise clearly every operator would want to have a piece of that action.

Indeed isn't this what Margaret Thatcher - still a goddess in the eyes of thousands of Tory-voting licensees across the UK - wanted to see in her ideal of capitalism? That good businesses, those that look after their customer base, survive and prosper while the weak fall by the wayside, to be dispatched with the 'alternative use' equivalent of a .45 calibre shell?

But for every advocate of a reduced UK pub estate there are dozens who argue vociferously against it; that the 38 - or is it 39? - pubs closing every week is a disaster for local communities and the wider nation.

They point out that running a pub is more than an exercise in Darwinian theory. Yes, pubs are businesses, but then so are football clubs and many of these continue to operate for the benefit of the wider population, despite posting massive losses.

So what is it to be? Should the government step in with a financial aid package for British pubs, as it has done with the banks and the motoring industry? Should it relax some of the horrendous red tape it has inflicted on businesses?

Or should pubs live or die purely and simply on their ability to attract customers into their premises, thus saving the British taxpayer a lot of grief? That would be Thatcher's argument, I'm sure.

I doubt that the government is going to do much for pubs just yet. But the argument that something should​ be done is becoming loud enough so that ministers are at least taking notice…