Pete Brown: Protest or be damned

Frustration. Anger. Disgust. Despair. The reaction to the Budget from the beer, cider and pub industries was pretty uniform, and entirely appropriate. The afternoon Alistair Darling promised a budget specifically designed to help small businesses, then kicked our small businesses firmly where it hurts the most, industry figures and beer bloggers alike competed to express their indignation in screeds of rage.

But was there any point? Was anyone who doesn't already hate the beer duty escalator even listening?

Our lobbyists clearly do not have the government's ear. Nothing CAMRA, the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) or anyone else says seems to make the slightest impression on this issue.

So what can we do?

If we really want to see an end to the assault on our industry, we need to change tactics and escalate our protest. We need to look at pressure groups that have actually succeeded in changing government policy and learn from them.  

In 1908, the beer and pub industry organised a protest in Hyde Park that defeated the Liberal government's Bill to introduce rules meaning licensees could have their licences withdrawn on a whim, without any wrongdoing and with no compensation. Tens of thousands of angry barmaids were transported in - at a time when public transport was (marginally) worse than it is now - and frightened the government into retreat.

Protest is much, much easier to orchestrate today than it was in 1908. Duty is one issue the entire drinks trade has common cause on, and so far we've failed to find a united voice. If we can't organise, say, one day of protest, where the BBPA and Fair Pint, pub companies and tenants, CAMRA and the Society for Independent Brewers, Coors and Wells & Youngs, The Publican and Morning Advertiser, all come together and mobilise, recruiting drinkers in pubs and laying on coaches to some sort of large scale, centralised demo, then we deserve everything we get.  

If we can't mobilise effectively, we have to put up with above-inflation duty increases for the foreseeable future and stop complaining about it. The one thing Darling has given us is plenty of advance warning. Among all the anguish and frustration felt across the industry on budget day, surely there was no-one who was actually surprised? He told us he was going to do this years ago, and tells us every year he's still going to do it.

We can work out right now how much duty is going to be next year, the year after, and every year until 2015. We need to plan forwards for a reality where the gap between on and off-trade prices is even higher. Does it mean tweaking the product mix, becoming less dependent on beer? Possibly, but that would be very sad. Does it mean thinking harder about what else pubs can do to draw people in despite the price? Perhaps - but it's yet more work for struggling publicans.

Acceptance of higher duty doesn't necessarily mean defeat.  Just before Christmas I met licensing minister Gerry Sutcliffe, and he asked me what the government could do to help pubs, quickly adding "apart from dropping the duty thing obviously, that's not going to change".  

Darling is raising duty because he wants more revenue. But he's not going to get it if his blinkered, naïve actions result in yet more pub closures. This provides a platform for more effective lobbying: if he's going to hit the trade with all these duty rises, we could surely bargain for other measures to help keep pubs open and give him the revenue he craves.

Don't like the sound of that? Then get that demo organised.