So the Jewish Museum is basically censuring free speech.
Controlling others' speech seems to be the very point of having an antisemitism code. One wonders where we would be if every historically wronged minority were so successful in leveraging their plight to protect themselves from criticism.
Why do the terms 'piss up' and 'brewery' come to mind with their handling of this?
A cynic might suggest that it is rather useful to Jezza to be seen to be turned down by the Jewish Museum...as the BBC report there is facing opposition from Jewish organisations over plans to deliver a speech at a Jewish venue...gives the cult ammunition to spin it as the lovely great leader reaching out as his kind and caring nature and been shot down.
Honestly, it is all way to way to late. And I for one wouldn't believe a bloody word he reads out from the Seamus script. But as many PBers have pointed out, the vast vast majority of voters have any idea about any of this.
So the Jewish Museum is basically censuring free speech.
They aren't stopping him talking? They aren't obliged to host him if they don't want to.
Nice to see Sean writing on here again but surely it should have been on a Friday as in the good old days?
Whilst I don't tend to agree much politically with Sean I think one of our problems in Britain is the inability of politicians to put their finger on what the core problem is. Maybe it's not really government debt, demographics, the banks, education or even housing. Perhaps it's LAND?
There is an interesting and readable book called Rethinking the Economics of Land and Housing by three economists from something called the New Economics Foundation which makes a powerful argument that land is indeed the major issue. Big residential developments in the 1950s and 1960s, such as the new towns, were built on land acquired through compulsory purchase at its agricultural value. This made development much cheaper - just imagine the cries of horror if the government tried that today!
The case for a tax on land value, balanced by a significant reduction in the tax on income, is really strong. Given Corbyn's radicalism its surprising they aren't looking more closely at this, rather than leaving the running to the LibDems.
Why do the terms 'piss up' and 'brewery' come to mind with their handling of this?
A cynic might suggest that it is rather useful to Jezza to be seen to be turned down by the Jewish Museum...as the BBC report there is facing opposition from Jewish organisations over plans to deliver a speech at a Jewish venue...gives the cult ammunition to spin it as the lovely great leader reaching out as his kind and caring nature and been shot down.
Honestly, it is all way to way to late. And I for one wouldn't believe a bloody word he reads out from the Seamus script. But as many PBers have pointed out, the vast vast majority of voters have any idea about any of this.
So the Jewish Museum is basically censuring free speech.
That's ... stupid.
Corbyn can give the speech wherever he wants, as long as he gets permission. It's just that, at the moment, he hasn't got permission to give it there. They are under no obligation to accept such a request, and are not in any way curtailing his freedom to make the speech. Just not there, on their property.
For instance, if I said I wanted to make a speech from your front living room, would you be censuring free speech by stopping me?
Why do the terms 'piss up' and 'brewery' come to mind with their handling of this?
A cynic might suggest that it is rather useful to Jezza to be seen to be turned down by the Jewish Museum...as the BBC report there is facing opposition from Jewish organisations over plans to deliver a speech at a Jewish venue...gives the cult ammunition to spin it as the lovely great leader reaching out as his kind and caring nature and been shot down.
Honestly, it is all way to way to late. And I for one wouldn't believe a bloody word he reads out from the Seamus script. But as many PBers have pointed out, the vast vast majority of voters have any idea about any of this.
So the Jewish Museum is basically censuring free speech.
They aren't stopping him talking? They aren't obliged to host him if they don't want to.
In many ways, if is story is true they're paying Corbyn a very sincere compliment by imitating the left's methods of just banning everyone who might say something they don't like. SOAS student union saying it would ban all Israelis and 'Zionists' from its premises a few years back springs to mind.
Why do the terms 'piss up' and 'brewery' come to mind with their handling of this?
A cynic might suggest that it is rather useful to Jezza to be seen to be turned down by the Jewish Museum...as the BBC report there is facing opposition from Jewish organisations over plans to deliver a speech at a Jewish venue...gives the cult ammunition to spin it as the lovely great leader reaching out as his kind and caring nature and been shot down.
Honestly, it is all way to way to late. And I for one wouldn't believe a bloody word he reads out from the Seamus script. But as many PBers have pointed out, the vast vast majority of voters have any idea about any of this.
So the Jewish Museum is basically censuring free speech.
That's ... stupid.
Corbyn can give the speech wherever he wants, as long as he gets permission. It's just that, at the moment, he hasn't got permission to give it there. They are under no obligation to accept such a request, and are not in any way curtailing his freedom to make the speech. Just not there, on their property.
For instance, if I said I wanted to make a speech from your front living room, would you be censuring free speech by stopping me?
Why do the terms 'piss up' and 'brewery' come to mind with their handling of this?
A cynic might suggest that it is rather useful to Jezza to be seen to be turned down by the Jewish Museum...as the BBC report there is facing opposition from Jewish organisations over plans to deliver a speech at a Jewish venue...gives the cult ammunition to spin it as the lovely great leader reaching out as his kind and caring nature and been shot down.
Honestly, it is all way to way to late. And I for one wouldn't believe a bloody word he reads out from the Seamus script. But as many PBers have pointed out, the vast vast majority of voters have any idea about any of this.
So the Jewish Museum is basically censuring free speech.
That's ... stupid.
Corbyn can give the speech wherever he wants, as long as he gets permission. It's just that, at the moment, he hasn't got permission to give it there. They are under no obligation to accept such a request, and are not in any way curtailing his freedom to make the speech. Just not there, on their property.
For instance, if I said I wanted to make a speech from your front living room, would you be censuring free speech by stopping me?
Censoring.
*pedantry*
Technically that's an oxymoron anyway, like talking about a reasonable post on Skwawkbox or Breitbart. You have free speech, or censorship. Therefore it should have been 'preventing free speech' or 'utilising censorship.'
An interesting header. It is not often that we have one deploring the predatory capitalists and damning the alienation of the worker from the means of production. Common to many areas of life to a large degree. It perhaps may explain why capitalism is very good at generating national income it has negative popularity. It sounds like the pub Co's need breaking up and some of their exploitative practices outlawed.
I think that the average local is doomed. Trendy pubs in city centres and country pubs with food are probably surviving, but the equivalent of the Rovers Return is likely to go the way of Woolworths. We simply do not live like that anymore, or at least not enough of us do.
I've been rethinking a lot of my ideas over the past couple of years,
Why do the terms 'piss up' and 'brewery' come to mind with their handling of this?
A cynic might suggest that it is rather useful to Jezza to be seen to be turned down by the Jewish Museum...as the BBC report there is facing opposition from Jewish organisations over plans to deliver a speech at a Jewish venue...gives the cult ammunition to spin it as the lovely great leader reaching out as his kind and caring nature and been shot down.
Honestly, it is all way to way to late. And I for one wouldn't believe a bloody word he reads out from the Seamus script. But as many PBers have pointed out, the vast vast majority of voters have any idea about any of this.
So the Jewish Museum is basically censuring free speech.
That's ... stupid.
Corbyn can give the speech wherever he wants, as long as he gets permission. It's just that, at the moment, he hasn't got permission to give it there. They are under no obligation to accept such a request, and are not in any way curtailing his freedom to make the speech. Just not there, on their property.
For instance, if I said I wanted to make a speech from your front living room, would you be censuring free speech by stopping me?
Censoring.
Apologies; I just copied the spelling used by Surby. It's too late (for me) to think clearly anyway...
Pubs, like libraries, inspire a lot of irrational sentimentality.
Irrational and largely undeserved. Far from being an important social hub, if you go into the average pub it usually contains the same few, angry, lonely, alcoholic old men, mumbling sullenly about nothing.
Basically like this place but with a stronger stench of stale urine.
I grew up in a pub. Every word Sean wrote is absolutely true. It's a vile model, which relies on attracting people who have rosy-tinted fantasies of pub life, wrings them dry of their life's savings while working them to death (my mother once worked out she'd not had a day off in over twelve years, and these were long and arduous days), and throwing them on to the discard pile while ushering the next suckers in.
So the Jewish Museum is basically censuring free speech.
Controlling others' speech seems to be the very point of having an antisemitism code. One wonders where we would be if every historically wronged minority were so successful in leveraging their plight to protect themselves from criticism.
Criticism of Israel should not involve Jews drinking blood, holocaust denial, or claiming that Hitler had a point.
Why do the terms 'piss up' and 'brewery' come to mind with their handling of this?
A cynic might suggest that it is rather useful to Jezza to be seen to be turned down by the Jewish Museum...as the BBC report there is facing opposition from Jewish organisations over plans to deliver a speech at a Jewish venue...gives the cult ammunition to spin it as the lovely great leader reaching out as his kind and caring nature and been shot down.
Honestly, it is all way to way to late. And I for one wouldn't believe a bloody word he reads out from the Seamus script. But as many PBers have pointed out, the vast vast majority of voters have any idea about any of this.
So the Jewish Museum is basically censuring free speech.
That's ... stupid.
Corbyn can give the speech wherever he wants, as long as he gets permission. It's just that, at the moment, he hasn't got permission to give it there. They are under no obligation to accept such a request, and are not in any way curtailing his freedom to make the speech. Just not there, on their property.
For instance, if I said I wanted to make a speech from your front living room, would you be censuring free speech by stopping me?
Censoring.
Apologies; I just copied the spelling used by Surby. It's too late (for me) to think clearly anyway...
No, I really ought be the one apologising for my inadequate pedantry.
My sister's local pub (as in, two doors down) has just been brutally torn apart in just the fashion described. But they are now selling the freehold. Thing is, although it's an itneresting building it's not really suitable for residential use and at the same time it's not in a good position to be a successful local - it's on the edge of a town not near the middle. Although she was very upset, I was frankly surprised it hadn't closed earlier (and when I'm in Dursley I go to the Old Spot in the town centre or the George in Cam for preference anyway).
It's been empty five months so far, could see it being on the market for two years.
Another factor in the demise of pubs has been the escalating housing market. Many pub buildings are worth more as houses than pubs.
Asset of Community Value status helps here. It saved a pub in our town from being converted to housing; it's now an enormously successful and rather trendy gastropub, with Cameron and Beckham among its recent clientele.
Really interesting header. Thank you.
Our local pub in very rural Cumbria was due to be sold but got classified as an asset of community value and the new - and good - landlord has bought the freehold and runs it as a pub restaurant. It is a bit of a social centre - lots of events are held there - and people do make an effort to go there to meet up etc. We’re quite lucky in that there are a number of good pubs nearby but they do all focus a lot on food so they are turning into gastropubs or all day brasseries rather than your traditional pub. Fortunately Cumbria is a bit of a foodie heaven so that helps.
But the ones that survive all have very good landlords and friendly staff. Others in the same area without those tend to fail pretty quickly.
Pubs, like libraries, inspire a lot of irrational sentimentality.
Both are vital parts of the community, the former particularly in non-metropolitan areas.
Nothing intrinsically irrational or sentimental about it in my view.
Everyone wants them and few use them.
Few use pubs?
Far fewer on average than they used to, which is why they keep closing*.
Incidentally, ar the Pub Co's actually making profits?
*Our hospital local closed last year, but reopened at the weekend, hooray! but I only get there once a month or so.
That's what makes the whole thing so stupid. Eventually, the Pub Cos. themselves fail, but no doubt, some of the Directors have creamed off hefty profits.
An interestingly different thread header. From my experience I would make a few points.
Firstly, when my firm acted for a large brewer the main tie for pubs was money. They would get cheap or even free loans to do up their premises in exchange for entering into the beer tie. I don't see how you could simply cancel the beer tie in such circumstances.
Secondly, much more recent experience is that the majority of old city pubs are completely unprofitable. The main priority of the pub owner is to have someone in there paying the rates. If they manage to pay some rent as well that is a bonus. Must such businesses go bust within a year. No doubt this causes a lot of misery for the publicans but it isn't great for the pub landlords either. What this shows is that the pub market is terminally sick. Between the smoking ban, the reduced drink driving limit in Scotland, the competition from supermarkets and the extortion of people like Sky and the PRS making a legal profit is just impossible unless you are lucky enough to attract a large, young and affluent crowd. Very few are.
Thirdly, Pubcos really don't have to be like that. In ideal circumstances they can act as collectives which allow bigger discounts from brewers etc. Of course freeholders can do that themselves.
Finally a lot of Pubcos seem to be going bust. Is that compatible with being rapacious?
My sister's local pub (as in, two doors down) has just been brutally torn apart in just the fashion described. But they are now selling the freehold. Thing is, although it's an itneresting building it's not really suitable for residential use and at the same time it's not in a good position to be a successful local - it's on the edge of a town not near the middle. Although she was very upset, I was frankly surprised it hadn't closed earlier (and when I'm in Dursley I go to the Old Spot in the town centre or the George in Cam for preference anyway).
It's been empty five months so far, could see it being on the market for two years.
Another factor in the demise of pubs has been the escalating housing market. Many pub buildings are worth more as houses than pubs.
Asset of Community Value status helps here. It saved a pub in our town from being converted to housing; it's now an enormously successful and rather trendy gastropub, with Cameron and Beckham among its recent clientele.
Really interesting header. Thank you.
Our local pub in very rural Cumbria was due to be sold but got classified as an asset of community value and the new - and good - landlord has bought the freehold and runs it as a pub restaurant. It is a bit of a social centre - lots of events are held there - and people do make an effort to go there to meet up etc. We’re quite lucky in that there are a number of good pubs nearby but they do all focus a lot on food so they are turning into gastropubs or all day brasseries rather than your traditional pub. Fortunately Cumbria is a bit of a foodie heaven so that helps.
But the ones that survive all have very good landlords and friendly staff. Others in the same area without those tend to fail pretty quickly.
Most Northern rural pubs don't need to become Gastropubs since, in my experience, the food tends to be plain, but delicious and very plentiful in such places.
Guido is never a happy bunny. His whole publishing ethos is based on him being the chippy outsider who thinks everything is wrong and everyone else is scum. The day that ceases he'll have to shut up shop.
Except, oddly, for the piece the other day entitled 'Everything is going to be alright'
Post Office have headed the same way as Pub Co. Though not as bad, they do expect the owner to subsidise any post office by using their own staff and premises and all rates, rents, utilities etc paid for by owner, and not PO. PO are no longer able to be stand alone businesses.
My local village shop has an embedded post office. It’s fairly popular.
How does the village shop survive?
I asked the owner that question. They sell, stationery, takeaway coffee, takeaway ready meals and fresh organic produce that you’d get in Waitrose but undercut their prices. Also do fresh bread and pastries. They also deliver several hundred newspapers a day, and magazines a week, which is apparently more profitable than I thought. They also offer cash withdrawals.
It also helps they are right opposite the village pub and open 6am-8pm a day.
My understanding is that you have to be up early (6am) to accept the newspapers and start assembling the newpaper supplements into the main newspapers ready to deliver them or have them available for customers to collect. This is stoppig our pub/post office from taking on newspapers as well.
My local newsagent, in the same place for decades, has been driven mad by a new tenant in the flat next door constantly complaining about noisy deliveries at 6 AM, to the Council amongst others. It put me in mid of this (probably photoshopped) tweet. Great responses too.
An interestingly different thread header. From my experience I would make a few points.
Firstly, when my firm acted for a large brewer the main tie for pubs was money. They would get cheap or even free loans to do up their premises in exchange for entering into the beer tie. I don't see how you could simply cancel the beer tie in such circumstances.
Secondly, much more recent experience is that the majority of old city pubs are completely unprofitable. The main priority of the pub owner is to have someone in there paying the rates. If they manage to pay some rent as well that is a bonus. Must such businesses go bust within a year. No doubt this causes a lot of misery for the publicans but it isn't great for the pub landlords either. What this shows is that the pub market is terminally sick. Between the smoking ban, the reduced drink driving limit in Scotland, the competition from supermarkets and the extortion of people like Sky and the PRS making a legal profit is just impossible unless you are lucky enough to attract a large, young and affluent crowd. Very few are.
Thirdly, Pubcos really don't have to be like that. In ideal circumstances they can act as collectives which allow bigger discounts from brewers etc. Of course freeholders can do that themselves.
Finally a lot of Pubcos seem to be going bust. Is that compatible with being rapacious?
My experience is that tenants get little or nothing in return for the beer tie, and they get wrung dry,
As to the last point yes. Completely rapacious capitalism is eventually self-deteating,
My sister's local pub (as in, two doors down) has just been brutally torn apart in just the fashion described. But they are now selling the freehold. Thing is, although it's an itneresting building it's not really suitable for residential use and at the same time it's not in a good position to be a successful local - it's on the edge of a town not near the middle. Although she was very upset, I was frankly surprised it hadn't closed earlier (and when I'm in Dursley I go to the Old Spot in the town centre or the George in Cam for preference anyway).
It's been empty five months so far, could see it being on the market for two years.
Another factor in the demise of pubs has been the escalating housing market. Many pub buildings are worth more as houses than pubs.
Asset of Community Value status helps here. It saved a pub in our town from being converted to housing; it's now an enormously successful and rather trendy gastropub, with Cameron and Beckham among its recent clientele.
Really interesting header. Thank you.
Our local pub in very rural Cumbria was due to be sold but got classified as an asset of community value and the new - and good - landlord has bought the freehold and runs it as a pub restaurant. It is a bit of a social centre - lots of events are held there - and people do make an effort to go there to meet up etc. We’re quite lucky in that there are a number of good pubs nearby but they do all focus a lot on food so they are turning into gastropubs or all day brasseries rather than your traditional pub. Fortunately Cumbria is a bit of a foodie heaven so that helps.
But the ones that survive all have very good landlords and friendly staff. Others in the same area without those tend to fail pretty quickly.
Most Northern rural pubs don't need to become Gastropubs since, in my experience, the food tends to be plain, but delicious and very plentiful in such places.
Some is as you describe and some is as good as - or better than you get in big cities. But a tough life nonetheless.
An interestingly different thread header. From my experience I would make a few points.
Firstly, when my firm acted for a large brewer the main tie for pubs was money. They would get cheap or even free loans to do up their premises in exchange for entering into the beer tie. I don't see how you could simply cancel the beer tie in such circumstances.
Secondly, much more recent experience is that the majority of old city pubs are completely unprofitable. The main priority of the pub owner is to have someone in there paying the rates. If they manage to pay some rent as well that is a bonus. Must such businesses go bust within a year. No doubt this causes a lot of misery for the publicans but it isn't great for the pub landlords either. What this shows is that the pub market is terminally sick. Between the smoking ban, the reduced drink driving limit in Scotland, the competition from supermarkets and the extortion of people like Sky and the PRS making a legal profit is just impossible unless you are lucky enough to attract a large, young and affluent crowd. Very few are.
Thirdly, Pubcos really don't have to be like that. In ideal circumstances they can act as collectives which allow bigger discounts from brewers etc. Of course freeholders can do that themselves.
Finally a lot of Pubcos seem to be going bust. Is that compatible with being rapacious?
My experience is that tenants get little or nothing in return for the beer tie, and they get wrung dry,
As to the last point yes. Completely rapacious capitalism is eventually self-deteating,
My experience, which is nearly 20 years ago now, is different. In those days brewers threw ridiculous amounts of money at pubs where we would be consistently pointing out that there was inadequate security and little prospect of recovery in the event of failure. The brewers didn't care. They just wanted to shift beer, lots of beer.
In those day Pubcos were barely in existence, at least in Scotland. I agree that they have become more of a nuisance since.
This #WeAreCorbyn stuff I find really offputting, and would do if any other politician's name was in its place (#WeAreBoJo?). Even if the subject truly were a new and transformative style for and vision of politics, which Corbyn is not (he is very much about the past and fighting old battles), it just seems so odd to invest so much in that individual even more than his message, whatever it is.
It blurs the cause with the man in a way which seems unwise, because you will undoubtedly find, when they prove to be human, to now be committed to someone pursuing things beyond what you thought the cause was, travelling down the road to inevitable hypocrisy.
An interestingly different thread header. From my experience I would make a few points.
Firstly, when my firm acted for a large brewer the main tie for pubs was money. They would get cheap or even free loans to do up their premises in exchange for entering into the beer tie. I don't see how you could simply cancel the beer tie in such circumstances.
Secondly, much more recent experience is that the majority of old city pubs are completely unprofitable. The main priority of the pub owner is to have someone in there paying the rates. If they manage to pay some rent as well that is a bonus. Must such businesses go bust within a year. No doubt this causes a lot of misery for the publicans but it isn't great for the pub landlords either. What this shows is that the pub market is terminally sick. Between the smoking ban, the reduced drink driving limit in Scotland, the competition from supermarkets and the extortion of people like Sky and the PRS making a legal profit is just impossible unless you are lucky enough to attract a large, young and affluent crowd. Very few are.
Thirdly, Pubcos really don't have to be like that. In ideal circumstances they can act as collectives which allow bigger discounts from brewers etc. Of course freeholders can do that themselves.
Finally a lot of Pubcos seem to be going bust. Is that compatible with being rapacious?
My experience is that tenants get little or nothing in return for the beer tie, and they get wrung dry,
As to the last point yes. Completely rapacious capitalism is eventually self-deteating,
My experience, which is nearly 20 years ago now, is different. In those days brewers threw ridiculous amounts of money at pubs where we would be consistently pointing out that there was inadequate security and little prospect of recovery in the event of failure. The brewers didn't care. They just wanted to shift beer, lots of beer.
In those day Pubcos were barely in existence, at least in Scotland. I agree that they have become more of a nuisance since.
While we are on pubs, can I just say that Blair government's smoking ban is a towering achievement. Nothing else they did in 3 terms came close to changing my personal life more.
It is difficult to remember what it was like sitting in a pub lounge with 3 or 4 smokers filling the room with fumes and going home coughing and your clothes sticking.
They stood together against the Jews and their oppression.
Erm, presumably this is in response to the rumours that McD is well and truly f-off with the whole Corbyn stubbornness and his anti-semite madness and refusal to bend or change.
An interestingly different thread header. From my experience I would make a few points.
Firstly, when my firm acted for a large brewer the main tie for pubs was money. They would get cheap or even free loans to do up their premises in exchange for entering into the beer tie. I don't see how you could simply cancel the beer tie in such circumstances.
Secondly, much more recent experience is that the majority of old city pubs are completely unprofitable. The main priority of the pub owner is to have someone in there paying the rates. If they manage to pay some rent as well that is a bonus. Must such businesses go bust within a year. No doubt this causes a lot of misery for the publicans but it isn't great for the pub landlords either. What this shows is that the pub market is terminally sick. Between the smoking ban, the reduced drink driving limit in Scotland, the competition from supermarkets and the extortion of people like Sky and the PRS making a legal profit is just impossible unless you are lucky enough to attract a large, young and affluent crowd. Very few are.
Thirdly, Pubcos really don't have to be like that. In ideal circumstances they can act as collectives which allow bigger discounts from brewers etc. Of course freeholders can do that themselves.
Finally a lot of Pubcos seem to be going bust. Is that compatible with being rapacious?
My experience is that tenants get little or nothing in return for the beer tie, and they get wrung dry,
As to the last point yes. Completely rapacious capitalism is eventually self-deteating,
My experience, which is nearly 20 years ago now, is different. In those days brewers threw ridiculous amounts of money at pubs where we would be consistently pointing out that there was inadequate security and little prospect of recovery in the event of failure. The brewers didn't care. They just wanted to shift beer, lots of beer.
In those day Pubcos were barely in existence, at least in Scotland. I agree that they have become more of a nuisance since.
While we are on pubs, can I just say that Blair government's smoking ban is a towering achievement. Nothing else they did in 3 terms came close to changing my personal life more.
It is difficult to remember what it was like sitting in a pub lounge with 3 or 4 smokers filling the room with fumes and going home coughing and your clothes sticking.
Completely agree. When I was in Italy last week people on the adjoining table lit up. It was horrible and we left when the restaurateur said there was nothing he could do. It reminded me how restaurants and pubs have improved out of all recognition for non smokers since the ban.
An interestingly different thread header. From my experience I would make a few points.
Firstly, when my firm acted for a large brewer the main tie for pubs was money. They would get cheap or even free loans to do up their premises in exchange for entering into the beer tie. I don't see how you could simply cancel the beer tie in such circumstances.
Secondly, much more recent experience is that the majority of old city pubs are completely unprofitable. The main priority of the pub owner is to have someone in there paying the rates. If they manage to pay some rent as well that is a bonus. Must such businesses go bust within a year. No doubt this causes a lot of misery for the publicans but it isn't great for the pub landlords either. What this shows is that the pub market is terminally sick. Between the smoking ban, the reduced drink driving limit in Scotland, the competition from supermarkets and the extortion of people like Sky and the PRS making a legal profit is just impossible unless you are lucky enough to attract a large, young and affluent crowd. Very few are.
Thirdly, Pubcos really don't have to be like that. In ideal circumstances they can act as collectives which allow bigger discounts from brewers etc. Of course freeholders can do that themselves.
Finally a lot of Pubcos seem to be going bust. Is that compatible with being rapacious?
My experience is that tenants get little or nothing in return for the beer tie, and they get wrung dry,
As to the last point yes. Completely rapacious capitalism is eventually self-deteating,
My experience, which is nearly 20 years ago now, is different. In those days brewers threw ridiculous amounts of money at pubs where we would be consistently pointing out that there was inadequate security and little prospect of recovery in the event of failure. The brewers didn't care. They just wanted to shift beer, lots of beer.
In those day Pubcos were barely in existence, at least in Scotland. I agree that they have become more of a nuisance since.
While we are on pubs, can I just say that Blair government's smoking ban is a towering achievement. Nothing else they did in 3 terms came close to changing my personal life more.
It is difficult to remember what it was like sitting in a pub lounge with 3 or 4 smokers filling the room with fumes and going home coughing and your clothes sticking.
Of course they could have believed in equality and made half the pubs non smoking and the other half smoking with big signs outside advertising which was which.
This #WeAreCorbyn stuff I find really offputting, and would do if any other politician's name was in its place (#WeAreBoJo?). Even if the subject truly were a new and transformative style for and vision of politics, which Corbyn is not (he is very much about the past and fighting old battles), it just seems so odd to invest so much in that individual even more than his message, whatever it is.
It blurs the cause with the man in a way which seems unwise, because you will undoubtedly find, when they prove to be human, to now be committed to someone pursuing things beyond what you thought the cause was, travelling down the road to inevitable hypocrisy.
This #WeAreCorbyn stuff I find really offputting, and would do if any other politician's name was in its place (#WeAreBoJo?). Even if the subject truly were a new and transformative style for and vision of politics, which Corbyn is not (he is very much about the past and fighting old battles), it just seems so odd to invest so much in that individual even more than his message, whatever it is.
It blurs the cause with the man in a way which seems unwise, because you will undoubtedly find, when they prove to be human, to now be committed to someone pursuing things beyond what you thought the cause was, travelling down the road to inevitable hypocrisy.
An interestingly different thread header. From my experience I would make a few points.
Firstly, when my firm acted for a large brewer the main tie for pubs was money. They would get cheap or even free loans to do up their premises in exchange for entering into the beer tie. I don't see how you could simply cancel the beer tie in such circumstances.
Secondly, much more recent experience is that the majority of old city pubs are completely unprofitable. The main priority of the pub owner is to have someone in there paying the rates. If they manage to pay some rent as well that is a bonus. Must such businesses go bust within a year. No doubt this causes a lot of misery for the publicans but it isn't great for the pub landlords either. What this shows is that the pub market is terminally sick. Between the smoking ban, the reduced drink driving limit in Scotland, the competition from supermarkets and the extortion of people like Sky and the PRS making a legal profit is just impossible unless you are lucky enough to attract a large, young and affluent crowd. Very few are.
Thirdly, Pubcos really don't have to be like that. In ideal circumstances they can act as collectives which allow bigger discounts from brewers etc. Of course freeholders can do that themselves.
Finally a lot of Pubcos seem to be going bust. Is that compatible with being rapacious?
My experience is that tenants get little or nothing in return for the beer tie, and they get wrung dry,
As to the last point yes. Completely rapacious capitalism is eventually self-deteating,
snip
In those day Pubcos were barely in existence, at least in Scotland. I agree that they have become more of a nuisance since.
While we are on pubs, can I just say that Blair government's smoking ban is a towering achievement. Nothing else they did in 3 terms came close to changing my personal life more.
It is difficult to remember what it was like sitting in a pub lounge with 3 or 4 smokers filling the room with fumes and going home coughing and your clothes sticking.
Completely agree. When I was in Italy last week people on the adjoining table lit up. It was horrible and we left when the restaurateur said there was nothing he could do. It reminded me how restaurants and pubs have improved out of all recognition for non smokers since the ban.
It is a classic example of the voters taking a policy achievement, banking it and then never acknowledging it happened or the work that went into it.
Pat Hewitt deserves a major mention here as well, as Health Sec at the time.
While we are on pubs, can I just say that Blair government's smoking ban is a towering achievement. Nothing else they did in 3 terms came close to changing my personal life more.
It is difficult to remember what it was like sitting in a pub lounge with 3 or 4 smokers filling the room with fumes and going home coughing and your clothes sticking.
Yes, the outlawing of the disgusting habit of smoking in public places in all of Europe is one of the great leaps forward for mankind of the last quarter-century. It's a bit generous to give Blair credit for it, since all civilised countries have done it, but it's my number one counter to the absurd suggestion that life is worse than it used to be. No it's not worse, it's a hell of a lot better. Those old enough to remember what it used to be like boarding a plane for a lon-haul flight, and agonising over whether you were going to be immediately adjacent to the foul fumes for eight hours or, if you were very lucky, would only get them filtered through the ventilation system, will know what I mean. Or you would spend a fortune on a restaurant meal and find it completely ruined by a group of chain-smokers on the next table. Things have only got better!
My sister's local pub (as in, two doors down) has just been brutally torn apart in just the fashion described. But they are now selling the freehold. Thing is, although it's an itneresting building it's not really suitable for residential use and at the same time it's not in a good position to be a successful local - it's on the edge of a town not near the middle. Although she was very upset, I was frankly surprised it hadn't closed earlier (and when I'm in Dursley I go to the Old Spot in the town centre or the George in Cam for preference anyway).
It's been empty five months so far, could see it being on the market for two years.
Another factor in the demise of pubs has been the escalating housing market. Many pub buildings are worth more as houses than pubs.
Asset of Community Value status helps here. It saved a pub in our town from being converted to housing; it's now an enormously successful and rather trendy gastropub, with Cameron and Beckham among its recent clientele.
Really interesting header. Thank you.
Our local pub in very rural Cumbria was due to be sold but got classified as an asset of community value and the new - and good - landlord has bought the freehold and runs it as a pub restaurant. It is a bit of a social centre - lots of events are held there - and people do make an effort to go there to meet up etc. We’re quite lucky in that there are a number of good pubs nearby but they do all focus a lot on food so they are turning into gastropubs or all day brasseries rather than your traditional pub. Fortunately Cumbria is a bit of a foodie heaven so that helps.
But the ones that survive all have very good landlords and friendly staff. Others in the same area without those tend to fail pretty quickly.
It is almost impossible imho to make money running a pub without food today. Possible if you are a real ale/trendy destination pub, but otherwise, no.
Ok, so it is JC twitterstorm night. This is happening because a) it was arranged months ago b) because he is under real pressure due to his support for anti-semite, neo-nazis whack jobs?
So the Jewish Museum is basically censuring free speech.
Controlling others' speech seems to be the very point of having an antisemitism code. One wonders where we would be if every historically wronged minority were so successful in leveraging their plight to protect themselves from criticism.
Criticism of Israel should not involve Jews drinking blood, holocaust denial, or claiming that Hitler had a point.
I quite agree, but there are legitimate questions to ask. Should Holocaust Remembrance Day be exclusively to remember the Jewish Holocaust in Europe? or should we also remember similar genocides such as the Rwandan, Yazedi, Armenien or Herero and Nama genocides too? to pick some 20th and 21st Century examples.
If it is not reasonable to compare Israel's actions in the occupied territories to the Nazis, is it reasonable to compare them with the Italian Fascists? or Apartheid South Africa or European Colonialism? In an era of Godwin's law, is it reasonable to trivialise by being a grammar Nazi?
I felt that I had to respond to Sean F in support of Pubcos as I work for one and having worked across a number of sectors previously I think there are a number of inaccuracies in what Sean says.
Whilst it is certainly the case that running a pub is very hard work I have seen many success stories of licensees working with Pubcos and making money for both parties. Whilst the beer tie may sound unfair on the face of it, the business model is much more akin to a franchise than the freehold market. A Pubco makes money from both rent and tied alcohol sales, therefore it is in the interest of the Pubco that the business is a success as it receives more income. All costs are available and shared prior to the signing of an agreement by the publican including administrative costs common to commercial leases.
The valuation of pub businesses is undertaken by the RICS in guidelines that they set. The large decline in the values of leases has come about from the introduction of the Pubs Code as pub companies have tried to avoid the risks associated with new publicans rights. These rights mean that investment into pubs that previously could be undertaken and secured with a long lease, is now more risky and Pubcos have looked to managed house (running the pubs with managers) as a less risky option.
Over the years I have seen financial support given to lots of publicans, but at the end of the day running a small business is risky. The company I work for tries hard to avoid business failures as it costs us significant amount of money, time and effort for every failure. They can happen for lots of reasons such a change in personal circumstance (illness, marital breakdown), fraud as well as poor business operation. In most of these instances organisations such as CAMRA will blame the Pubco and we have to respect confidentiality and not respond. We also invest significantly to reopen pubs and CAMRA will often fail to acknowledge this
So in summary I think the company I work for is ethical and does its best to support its own interests by supporting pub businesses to make the most money possible through the tie.
Pubs do matter as they are often have key social functions in the community, and they also collect vast sums of taxation. A large part of every pint you drink in a pub will be sent to the taxman for beer duty and VAT. Support your local pub whether it is tied or not.
Lastly the government has already introduced a statutory code to govern the practices of the industry. It would be a good idea to see if that works.
Comments
Corbyn can give the speech wherever he wants, as long as he gets permission. It's just that, at the moment, he hasn't got permission to give it there. They are under no obligation to accept such a request, and are not in any way curtailing his freedom to make the speech. Just not there, on their property.
For instance, if I said I wanted to make a speech from your front living room, would you be censuring free speech by stopping me?
*much worse pedantry*
You visit the wrong places.
Speaking of which, I think a whisky is in order.
Good night to one and all.
Incidentally, ar the Pub Co's actually making profits?
*Our hospital local closed last year, but reopened at the weekend, hooray! but I only get there once a month or so.
Our local pub in very rural Cumbria was due to be sold but got classified as an asset of community value and the new - and good - landlord has bought the freehold and runs it as a pub restaurant. It is a bit of a social centre - lots of events are held there - and people do make an effort to go there to meet up etc. We’re quite lucky in that there are a number of good pubs nearby but they do all focus a lot on food so they are turning into gastropubs or all day brasseries rather than your traditional pub. Fortunately Cumbria is a bit of a foodie heaven so that helps.
But the ones that survive all have very good landlords and friendly staff. Others in the same area without those tend to fail pretty quickly.
Firstly, when my firm acted for a large brewer the main tie for pubs was money. They would get cheap or even free loans to do up their premises in exchange for entering into the beer tie. I don't see how you could simply cancel the beer tie in such circumstances.
Secondly, much more recent experience is that the majority of old city pubs are completely unprofitable. The main priority of the pub owner is to have someone in there paying the rates. If they manage to pay some rent as well that is a bonus. Must such businesses go bust within a year. No doubt this causes a lot of misery for the publicans but it isn't great for the pub landlords either. What this shows is that the pub market is terminally sick. Between the smoking ban, the reduced drink driving limit in Scotland, the competition from supermarkets and the extortion of people like Sky and the PRS making a legal profit is just impossible unless you are lucky enough to attract a large, young and affluent crowd. Very few are.
Thirdly, Pubcos really don't have to be like that. In ideal circumstances they can act as collectives which allow bigger discounts from brewers etc. Of course freeholders can do that themselves.
Finally a lot of Pubcos seem to be going bust. Is that compatible with being rapacious?
https://order-order.com/2018/07/31/everything-going-alright/
As to the last point yes. Completely rapacious capitalism is eventually self-deteating,
https://twitter.com/johnmcdonnellmp/status/1025109865138728961?s=21
In those day Pubcos were barely in existence, at least in Scotland. I agree that they have become more of a nuisance since.
Just joking - but they seem so sure remain did nothing wrong but appear to see endless flaws in the leave side which of course spent 50 per cent less.
It blurs the cause with the man in a way which seems unwise, because you will undoubtedly find, when they prove to be human, to now be committed to someone pursuing things beyond what you thought the cause was, travelling down the road to inevitable hypocrisy.
It is difficult to remember what it was like sitting in a pub lounge with 3 or 4 smokers filling the room with fumes and going home coughing and your clothes sticking.
#WeAreCameron
#WeAreMiliband(E)
#WeAreHammond
#WeAreEdBalls
... I see your point
#IAmStockpilingBakedBeans
https://twitter.com/andreajenkyns/status/1025131691944423426
It is a classic example of the voters taking a policy achievement, banking it and then never acknowledging it happened or the work that went into it.
Pat Hewitt deserves a major mention here as well, as Health Sec at the time.
Answers on a tweet please.
NEW THREAD FOLKS!
If it is not reasonable to compare Israel's actions in the occupied territories to the Nazis, is it reasonable to compare them with the Italian Fascists? or Apartheid South Africa or European Colonialism? In an era of Godwin's law, is it reasonable to trivialise by being a grammar Nazi?
Whilst it is certainly the case that running a pub is very hard work I have seen many success stories of licensees working with Pubcos and making money for both parties. Whilst the beer tie may sound unfair on the face of it, the business model is much more akin to a franchise than the freehold market. A Pubco makes money from both rent and tied alcohol sales, therefore it is in the interest of the Pubco that the business is a success as it receives more income. All costs are available and shared prior to the signing of an agreement by the publican including administrative costs common to commercial leases.
The valuation of pub businesses is undertaken by the RICS in guidelines that they set. The large decline in the values of leases has come about from the introduction of the Pubs Code as pub companies have tried to avoid the risks associated with new publicans rights. These rights mean that investment into pubs that previously could be undertaken and secured with a long lease, is now more risky and Pubcos have looked to managed house (running the pubs with managers) as a less risky option.
Over the years I have seen financial support given to lots of publicans, but at the end of the day running a small business is risky. The company I work for tries hard to avoid business failures as it costs us significant amount of money, time and effort for every failure. They can happen for lots of reasons such a change in personal circumstance (illness, marital breakdown), fraud as well as poor business operation. In most of these instances organisations such as CAMRA will blame the Pubco and we have to respect confidentiality and not respond. We also invest significantly to reopen pubs and CAMRA will often fail to acknowledge this
So in summary I think the company I work for is ethical and does its best to support its own interests by supporting pub businesses to make the most money possible through the tie.
Pubs do matter as they are often have key social functions in the community, and they also collect vast sums of taxation. A large part of every pint you drink in a pub will be sent to the taxman for beer duty and VAT. Support your local pub whether it is tied or not.
Lastly the government has already introduced a statutory code to govern the practices of the industry. It would be a good idea to see if that works.