Licensed trade must learn from history
There is a well-used saying — if you live long enough you see everything twice.
Like most parents, I regularly put my 11-year-old daughter right as to the true origin of the latest boy-band remake.
The same is true of fashions in drinks — the resurgence of cask ale and spirit mixing, for example — clothes and many other things.
The serious lesson, of course, is that there are many things we can learn from history.
As a politics student in the 1980s, I remember studying the green movement. At that point they were seen as a bunch of aging hippies in open-toed sandals with crack-pot tree-hugging ideas about recycling stuff. In local elections Green Party candidates would regularly lose their deposit and their ideas were derided.
Today, only 20 years on, the "green agenda" is at the heart of Government at all levels, business and even family life. The ideas cast aside only a generation ago by the majority are now assumed wisdom. Anti-environmental behaviour is now simply socially unacceptable.
What brought about that change?
Without question, a greater understanding of our changing planet has helped. However, just as important, in my view, has been that this has been supported by positive campaigning with positive solutions — recycling, reduced CO2 emissions, and tidal energy among others.
What's all this got to do with the MA readership?
Like many of you I seem to be on the email trail of many campaigns this industry seems to generate.
Over recent years I have heard that all, or parts of the industry were against the smoking ban, against licensing reform, against town-centre disorder zones, against the beer tie, against the beer-duty accelerator, to name but a few.
Looking back through my inbox I'm very clear what people are/have been against.
In their own right, these are very laudable campaigns.
My point is that I'm not really sure what, as an industry, we stand for. History tells us that negative campaigns tend to have a lower chance of success. People are motivated by movements for a positive view of the future. What's the solution? I have written on a number of occasions about the need for a common industry voice to be heard both in the Government and the wider community.
It is my strong view that the industry urgently needs a common positive view of the future — a vision it can share with Government to help shape policy and law making at the highest level. For a start, how about "Responsibly run pubs at the heart of the community"? I'm sure readers can come up with something far better.
Remember, going to the pub is still Britain's favourite leisure activity. It's important to consider lessons from the past, while looking forward to a prosperous future.
