Hamish Champ: Do we really want Tobias Ellwood as Licensing Minister?

In case you've not noticed a general election is merely months away. MPs of all persuasions have begun rushing around telling us they​ are the ones to be entrusted with running the country for the next God Knows How Long.

So it was that a get-together hosted by the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers (ALMR) in the NEC in Birmingham last week saw representatives of the three major political parties present what their lot would do for the trade, should power come their way.

Labour's John Grogan, bless 'im, cracked the usual jokes and pointed to the positives in the Licensing Act, but offered little that was new. Lib Dem MP Lorely Burt said, well, I'm not sure she said anything​, to be honest.

But Tobias Ellwood - former army officer-turned-Conservative MP for Bournemouth East and the party's spokesman on all things cultural, including the pub sector? Surely he​ would impress.

After all, most people in the pub trade can't stand Gordon Brown or anyone remotely connected with his government. With this kind of audience Ellwood couldn't fail. Could he? Er, yes he could, as it happens. And quite spectacularly.

I've rarely witnessed a better example of someone burying what political goodwill they had with an industry that's so desperate to get rid of an incumbent government.

What happened? Well, to use a footballing analogy, rather than stroking the policy ball cleanly into as glaring an open goal as he's ever likely to encounter, Ellwood hoofed it into row Z of the stands.

There were a few passing references to supermarket pricing, pub closures and the role pubs play in the culture of the UK, but mainly Ellwood spoke to the gathering as if it was made up of naughty schoolchildren.

His 10-minute presentation was peppered with references to disreputable pubs, the need for a national database to weed out iffy licensees, dodgy Liverpudlians opening bars in his constituency or Turkish people taking licensing exams in their native language.

The audience sat in stony silence. When it came to questions from the floor it's fair to say Ellwood was given a rough time.

Why, he was asked, did he focus on the bad side of the trade? Why could he not offer any positive support for an industry that has gone through its toughest period in generations? Etc. He didn't have an answer.

When trying to persuade people to vote for them in the run-up to an election politicians tend to do one of two things: talk lots but actually say very little, or simply come out with what they know their audience at the time wants to hear.

Rightly or wrongly Ellwood shot from the hip, only to find the bullets ricocheting around the room before wedging themselves firmly in his own posterior.

My spies tell me that following the event Ellwood's office sent ALMR chief executive Nick Bish a message in which the MP complained about the treatment he'd received at the hands of his audience. He doesn't like the panel environment, apparently. Such an attitude beggars belief; he can surely expect to be similarly tested - and with increasing frequency - in the run-up to an election.

Worryingly, Ellwood displayed a staggering ignorance of the pub trade, to the extent that anyone with an interest in the future of the sector who witnessed his performance should be hoping that in the likely event the Conservatives win the forthcoming general election he's given another portfolio, rather than responsibility for the licensed trade.

As one delegate muttered to me as Ellwood made for the exit at the end of the session: "I was going to vote for his lot. But after that? No way."

I don't imagine he'll be the only one…