Democracy at work?

So, what did you make of the Business & Enterprise Committee's report into the pub trade then?

For example, did you agree with the man from Fair Pint who said the report's findings showed that many tenants only take on a tied lease because of the difficulties of finding a free-of-tie pub, and that the report "blows out of the water" the pubcos' argument that the tie offers a low cost of entry, because of its findings on rents?

Or did you have some sympathy with the view proffered by Enterprise Inns chief executive Ted Tuppen that such is the work his company does with and for its lessees that he simply "did not recognise the committee's allegations [concerning a lack of support for its pubs] which we believe are unsupportable"?

I admit I was rather taken aback by the report when I first read it, though not just in terms of its conclusions. I was surprised by its, shall we say, 'uncompromising' tone.

Still, having seen the mauling that Giles Thorley, Ted Tuppen and Simon Townsend received at the hands of MPs - when they gave their now controversially 'misleading' evidence - it appeared committee members were in no mood to play the Nice Guy with the country's largest operators.

Whether evidence given to the committee reflected the state of play across the whole tied model is a question the report didn't really answer for me.

I've spoken to lessees who have nothing but contempt for the company which owns the bricks and mortar of their pub. Whether this ire was there when they took the pub on or arose subsequently is never clear.

I imagine the rest of the licensee population get on with running their pubs, allowing themselves the odd mutter about the "bloody landlord" but little beyond that.

What happens now is anyone's guess. What if the government thinks "Sod it, it's near enough to an election, let's just have a review"?

At least it would lay to rest the arguments of one side or the other.

And if in a few months' time it eventually came down on the side of the beer tie 'rebels' then they and every other tenant could trot along to see their bank manager and ask for half a million quid to buy their pub. Sorted!