I’ve always thought that Nigel Farage was a decent enough cove, a bit rough and ready, but generally rather sound. And since he has experience of the real world, his attitude towards taxation and business is generally quite sensible.

But unfortunately, I think Mr Farage has spent just a little too much time in the EU and it has started to warp his mind:

Cheap supermarket alcohol is a “big problem”, Bacon says. Farage interjects: “Generally I’m in favour of the free market, but I think the pub is such a vital element of community life that if you allow supermarkets to go on doing what they are doing there wouldn’t be anything left.

“I think we should have some degree of minimum pricing in supermarkets.”

But when it comes to pubs being “tied” to a particular “pubco”, there is a different tune to be sung:

For Bacon it’s not so much being tied to certain products that’s the problem, it’s the price levels that mean she can’t compete with the freetrade.

“I think there has to be a degree of liberalisation,” says Farage

How odd. So depending on who you are, Mr Farage will either push up the price at which you can sell drinks, or enforce competition to force the price at which you can sell drinks down. So what happens when Tesco gets into the pub business, or Punch Taverns gets into the groceries business?

And how is this pandering to a special interest group that happens to share common ground with Mr Farage a good basis for governing the rest of us? If I wanted some lobbyist-accommodating micromanager of the economy (who will always get it wrong), I’d say we already have someone who is very skilled at all of the above already in power.

1
JuliaM April 24, 2010 at 08:13

It’s almost as if, instead of being the saviour of mankind and that breath of fresh air we hope will blow through Parliament, he’s just another politician, isn’t it?

Telling each person he meets what they want to hear in order to get them to vote for him, never caring if that means he ends up contradicting himself…

2
Jay April 24, 2010 at 09:33

This is rather one-suded, supermarkets have been the ruin of many small shops and businesses, not just pubs. Farage is on the side of choice, FAIR competition and upholding communities of which the pubs play a central part. His taking a swipe at supermarkets in this instance is entirely in keeping with his views and to be applauded.

3
Alan April 24, 2010 at 11:02

Farage-o is also somewhat wrong.

Once men learned it was okay to gossip at home rather than scurry off to the pub as cover, the drinking culture was bound to change. The rise and rise of home entertainment, from radio through to blu-ray telly, the internet and games consoles has also done great harm to the pub industry.

What it has done in a great many pubs and clubs is reduce the customers to ‘people who want to get drunk’ because the people who want to have a few drinks and enjoy themselves are doing it at home. Either on their own or having some chums round for nibbles and a natter.

Supermarkets selling relatively cheap alcohol is a symptom not a cause.

4
SadButMadLad April 24, 2010 at 12:08

I’m with Jay on this. There is a difference between fair competition between similarly sized companies and unfair between large and small companies. It’s not fair when one is massive and can pretty much impose conditions, even if they aren’t technically a monopoly. PubCos and supermarkets are massive compared to the small corner shop and pub and can and do demand conditions on their suppliers (and customers) that the smaller ones don’t.

Alan, I don’t agree with your observation about drinking at home. From my experience and observation I think the drinking at home is more to do with a result of pub prices shooting up because of PubCos and pubs encouraging loud music and other environments to get what little business they can from the young people which don’t help socialising. Supermarkets cutting prices on beer is a result of higher prices at the pubs. I don’t believe supermarkets are using them as loss leaders, they are still making a profit on them, but pub prices are so high now that supermarkets can’t help put sell at a lower price. I don’t belive men (or women) want to drink at home with friends when they still have the kids running round, spouses nagging, washing drying on the radiators, etc.

5
2Mac April 24, 2010 at 14:25

I think in the state of the country at the moment we have many more problems that worrying about how many establishements are available to get drunk. I cannot imagine politicians worrying about the economic success of any other damaging industry.

I personally have a family and opt for wine at home in the evening. It costs me very little financially, it is responsible drinking and I can still help with the chores and bed time routine for kids.

I cannot see the advantage to the family of me going down to the pub more often, spending 10 x the amount, neglecting family life and creating a social scene that always involves just drinking and mainly alcoholics or trainee alcoholics.

When you consider the way in which people drink in the UK compared to abroad I would say the less pubs the better. Less assholes on the street, less fighting, less litter, less police time wasted with loutish behaviour.

Having at beer at 10 pin bowling, snooker, pool or watching some sport is one thing but a pub is just a drinking den where the only purpose is drinking or trying to get laid.

Pubs like their opposites the Churches are not the centre of a community they are just buildings. If people do not want go there then they have diminishing importance.

As for supermarket prices. I love Tesco’s half price deals on a bottle of wine. Compare this to a glass of wine for the same price, cost of taxi or long walk home through lout infested streets in shitty weather.

6
Antisthenes April 24, 2010 at 14:30

Either you believe in a fee market or you don’t, it is the tinkering with markets that causes them not to function properly. If there are unpleasant affects from market actions then that is not the fault of the market that is the fault of people not responding adequately and changing their business model or moving to a more profitable business.

In the case of supermarkets versus pubs both offer entirely different services. Cheap booze in supermarkets will effect minimally on pubs apart from helping to keep pub booze prices marginally lower. Many other factors more important than supermarket prices affect the fortunes of pubs.

7
Demetrius April 24, 2010 at 18:00

Pubs and community life? All those places flogging packaged under heated grub from service chains that don’t want to know you if you aren’t spending a large amount of money on factory food? Has he seen how many have closed? Has he noticed that the old style “community” pub is no more across vast tracts of the land? Dear Zeus has he seen the prices in some of them?

8
Alex April 24, 2010 at 18:27

Some of you nay sayers speak utter twaddle.

Only reason I ever go to the pub is for a social. Long lunches with my grandparents, SIG meets and the odd sing song, all pub affairs and while some alcohol is consumed communication is the real goal. I know I am not the only person who feels this way by a long shot, and being in my 20s means that I’m not some member of the old guard clinging on to some last vestige of a dying age back when I were a lad.

More people I know go to a pub as a community venue than do church. Possibly a geographical thing, but pubs are still pretty darn important from where I’m standing, as more than just booze houses.

Think part of the reason that pubs are failing is all the stupid regulations, not supermarket pricing.

9
Ancient and Tattered Airman April 24, 2010 at 19:51

The smoking ban was, I feel, the straw that finally broke the camels back.

10
graham April 25, 2010 at 18:47

If we allowed more small pubs to open with the owner landlord living in , they could buy beer ,wine and spirits at such a price that would let them cut the managed and tenanted pubs to death on price.
Beer from reputable and well known brewers s available at well below £1 a pint and you can buy bottled beers at 40p bottle from the supermarket, currently being sold in pubs for £2.65 abottle [small bottle at that]
There is no free market in public drinking, we are at the mercy of the big players and no one wants to do a thing about it. Free up the market and let real market forces prevail