Will the National Living Wage close pubs?

I've just read an article in the Morning Advertiser by William Lees-Jones of the Middleton brewery, JW Lees, suggesting that the National Living Wage (currently £9.15 in London and £7.85 elsewhere) will close pubs. I don't usually take much notice of economic apocalypse predicted by capitalist companies when they are forced to implement social or welfare measures, or - as I prefer to think of it - are required to face up to their social responsibilities, seeing that the doom and gloom they anticipate rarely materialises. Is this situation any different?

I think it might well be. The gradual introduction of the Living Wage over the next five years is coupled with immediate cuts in tax credits. I have long thought that the state shouldn't be subsidising low wages, currently with tax credits, and previously with Family Income Supplement and then Family Credit. However, it has been the policy of both Tory and Labour governments in the last 35 to 40 years to cultivate a low wage economy to make us "more competitive". It's a typical British response: countries like Germany and Japan modernised their industries to improve the products and make them more attractive to customers. We just tried to cut costs. That is why in the 1970s British Leyland was selling mostly unattractive-looking cars with 1950s engines. The same applied to the brewing industry: the 1970s was a terrible time for beer as companies tried to get us to drink mass produced, low quality national brands.

Our motor industry is now mostly foreign owned, but our brewing situation has - against the flow of the tide of British industry - improved beyond recognition, although that has little to do with the industry as it was. The Beer Orders of 1989 liberated brewing by causing the national brewers to shed their massive tied estates, thereby creating a bigger market for small new brewers. Unfortunately, they also led to the parlous situation that many of our pubs are now in, the reasons for which I've covered many times previously, although the huge debts of pub companies must take much of the blame.

The government is transferring responsibility for dealing with low wages from itself to employers. In principle I agree with this, but their motive is not any concern for employees, but simply to save money. This is demonstrated by the gap between the ending of tax credits and the full implementation of the Living Wage, which will undoubtedly cause hardship. You cannot overturn decades of government policy relating to a low age economy within a single parliament: the more quickly you introduce major changes, the higher the chance of unintended consequences. Just as the removal of tax credits without any immediate replacement may drive many workers into further poverty, the requirement to pay the Living Wage may drive pubs that are just about holding on into deficit. Consequently, I think William Lees-Jones may just have a point to some extent, although I feel that his pronouncements are still partly derived from the usual business habit of crying wolf about increased costs.

An increased level of pub closures is not inevitable: the industry's call for a lower level of VAT for the hospitality industry and cuts in alcohol duty could help pubs deal with the extra cost of the Living Wage, but I see no sign of any of that happening. The government's strategy is high risk, not just to pubs. Time will show how risky, but some casualties do seem quite likely. Regrettably, this may include some pubs.

Suburban pubs most at risk

A partly demolished Plough in Southport

Suburban pubs face a greater chance of closure than rural or town and city centre pubs, according to CAMRA. During each week of the first half of 2015, seventeen pubs were lost suburban areas, nine in the countryside and three on the High Street. This follows separate research that showed there has been a 4.4% decline in wet-led outlets over the last year, higher than the the overall figure.

This is borne out by our experience locally: suburban pubs we have lost in Southport include The Herald, The Portland, the Shakespeare, the London and the Plough - all in predominantly residential areas. A CAMRA spokesperson said: "Suburban pubs are classic street-corner, wet-led pubs and community locals that have been an integral part of British culture for hundreds of years. Unfortunately though, as drinking habits change and property prices rise, they are being hit the worst."

I think that's true, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Debt-ridden pub companies are reluctant to invest in pubs that may be only moderately profitable. Older suburban pubs often sit on large sites in areas that already residential in character; redevelopment into accommodation must be very tempting for the owners. In this way, a pub that isn't doing a great deal for a pub company can suddenly become a lottery win.

It's my view that the pub companies sometimes help this process along by neglecting their pubs so that they become dingy and uninviting, thus driving customers away and into the town centre pubs, which are generally better maintained (three of the pubs named above were very close to the town centre anyway). The pub is then deemed unviable and closed.

The call by industry organisations for further cuts in beer duty, business rates and a hospitality rate of VAT. These might help, but they won't do anything to sort out the debt mountain the pubco industry is stuck with. Cashing in their assets will therefore remain a preferable alternative to continuing investment and moderate returns.

Big Blues Festival, Southport

The Stumble are playing on Saturday

This weekend (9 - 10 October) there will be a blues festival in The Atkinson on Lord Street, Southport.

The Atkinson says that: "The weekend is all about the food, and drink, music and a bunch of people who all love the same thing … great music! Featuring Martin Harley, Jaywalkers, Gilmore & Roberts, Amelia Curran, The Coal Porters and Danny & The Champions Of The World ... The line-up is big and bold and presents music that is desperate to be heard! Come along and hear Chicago style rhythm & blues, gospel, rock and roots to the experimental across the 2 day event."

Real ale will be provided by Southport Brewery, Sandgrounder and Golden Sands, and there's a food menu as well. Festival tickets here.

Getting wasted

I was in the Mount Pleasant in Southport with some friends last night watching local rock band Fag Ash Lil put on a great show as usual. The pub was quite busy, probably not as busy as it would have been had the Southport Musical Fireworks Championships not been on.

At some time during the evening, a group of young lads walked out of the pub, leaving four pints of lager and cider on the table: one untouched, two with no more than one sip taken, and one more than half full. At closing time a couple of hours later, the bar staff removed them and poured them away. I estimated that about £12's worth of drink went down the drain.

I've periodically noticed this kind of behaviour before: certain groups of people, usually young, will suddenly decide to go and, instead of drinking up, just walk away. In the Sir Henry Segrave a couple of months ago, there was a large group consisting of a couple of dozen males, mostly young, who did exactly the same thing, except on that occasion there were probably about 18-20 abandoned drinks.

Leaving beer is not something I've ever been in the habit of doing, nor people I know. I can only assume they've got more money than sense.

CAMRA AGM Liverpool 2016

I've just had an e-mail inviting me to register for the CAMRA AGM in Liverpool. It's great to have it back in Merseyside; it was in Southport in 2004. Liverpool is a wonderful city for pubs, and I'm not just saying that because I was born there. With trains every quarter of an hour between Liverpool and Southport where I live (the last one home is at twenty to midnight), and a free Merseytravel pass, the only cost for me will be the beer. So perhaps I'd better get saving then.

I like the logo that's been devised for the occasion. Liverpool Branch have had T-shirts made with it on; I wonder whether I can get hold of one. Are any fellow bloggers or ReARM readers intending to come next April to our fine city?

The first day of the AGM is All Fools' Day. I do hope that's not an omen.

Posh pub grub

The Hop Vine in Burscough is well known
for its food, but is still a good real ale pub.

An interesting post on Curmudgeon's blog was about how some pubs have gone upmarket by switching the emphasis of their trade to food. Not just any old pub grub, but quality food that is correspondingly expensive. With the layout of the pub clearly arranged with diners in mind, such pubs aren't particularly welcoming if all you want to do is have a drink. I added a comment, which I reproduce it here:

I've just done a tour over two days of ten of our local country pubs [in West Lancashire], many canalside, to distribute our local CAMRA mag, and also to take notes and pictures for my pub articles for the local paper. I took friends with me as my drinking was seriously limited by driving; they were my surrogate drinkers, and we spent some time in each pub chatting to bar staff and licensees.

All the pubs did food, and only one, a residential hotel with a real ale bar, asked if we'd be eating, but there was no problem when we said no. All were welcoming and friendly, and I got the impression that all, including the hotel, had a core of regulars who came in just to have a drink. Perhaps that's the difference: when a pub ceases to have such regulars, it has completed the transition from pub to restaurant where drinkers are seen as table blockers rather than customers.

The Mount Pleasant, nearest pub to where
I live: good food, but still a real pub.

Although there are quite a lot of food pubs in the local area, I can think of only one that might fit into the upmarket food category described by Curmudgeon: the Sparrowhawk in Formby, which used to be a popular wedding venue and is now primarily a restaurant that serves real ale. I've never been because: it is out of my way; I prefer not to drink in restaurants; and I've no wish to pay the high prices for beer. I can drink elsewhere locally for 50% to 80% of the prices they charge. This isn't a criticism of the venue: the Sparrowhawk has its own market, and that's fair enough - horses for courses, after all. It was never intended to be a local.

For myself, if I choose to have a meal in a pub, I prefer the kinds of pubs I visited in Lancashire to any gastropub. Curmudgeon specifically mentioned Cheshire, which in parts is much posher than Southport. That may explain the number of pricey food pubs he has encountered.

I've just found a webpage called "Leading Gastropubs Southport". The nearest is 12.4 miles away.

Art exhibition and CD launch - Ray Rooney

Ray Rooney, local songwriter and artist, is exhibiting his art and launching his latest CD on Saturday 17 October at the Art House, Eastbank Street, Southport from around 7.00pm. Ray will also be in the gallery in the afternoons of 15, 22 and 24 October to sing a few songs and to discuss his work. All welcome, and admission is free.

You can click on the poster to enlarge it.

Short URL for this post: tiny.cc/rooney

Spam (and it's not another Cameron joke)

I've been getting a bit of spam recently, which is slightly irritating. It's never posted on the most recent entry on the blog; always on an older one, so I presume they think it is likely to remain there undetected. Don't they realise we bloggers get an e-mail alert every time something is posted on our blogs, even on the oldest of posts? This one, the most recent, is fairly typical:

Thanks for taking the time to discuss that, I feel strongly about this and so really like getting to know more on this kind of field. Do you mind updating your blog post with additional insight? It should be really useful for all of us. nail art

'Nail art' was a link, now deactivated, to a website which unsurprisingly is about nail art. As always with spam, the text is worded in a general way to try to sound interested in the subject matter, but is so neutral and non-specific that the whole thing can be cut and pasted into a blog about anything at all. On a previous occasion, a link took me through to the website of a London escort agency: much as I liked the idea that these beautiful women were fascinated by my view of the temperature of the beer in a Liverpool pub, for some reason I was unconvinced. 

Apart from being irritated, I sometimes wonder whether someone takes the time to go through blogs actually posting these adverts themselves, or are they posted at random by a computer programme?

A pint too far?

I e-mailed the CAMRA Marketing Team about the concerns I had about the Campaign's promotion of Punch's free pint offer for Cask Ale Week (see previous post of 26 September), seeing that they had just agreed to sell 158 pubs, including the Roscoe Head in Liverpool, to a property developer. I'm not really convinced by their reply, but I'll let you judge for yourself. Here it is in full:

Thank you for your feedback, all comments received from our members are appreciated and considered.

Punch have played an active part in Cask Ale Week, a UK wide event championing real ale. This promotion is supporting the Punch pub leaseholders by driving CAMRA members into their pubs during Cask Ale Week, these are the very pubs CAMRA has been campaigning to help over the last few years in regards to the tied pub issue. Whilst some of CAMRA's aims and activities conflict with that of Punch's, we encourage a healthy dialogue between us when goals align. Keeping the lines of communication open also allows us to raise and discuss issues when they do not.

CAMRA is also committed to four Key Campaigns..... one is to encourage more people into pubs and another to drink a range of real ales. This scheme can help with both of these Key Campaigns.

I hope this explains the thinking behind our relationship with Punch and the associated Cask Ale Week promotion.

CAMRA Marketing team

Keeping lines of communication open is one thing; acting as their unofficial promoter is quite another. I have questioned the value of CAMRA's May Is Mild Month campaign. Perhaps similar arguments apply to Cask Ale Week if promoting it means we have to compromise basic principles of saving real ale and real pubs just so members with a smart phone can get a free pint in a Punch pub.

CAMRA accepts 30 pieces of silver

It's Cask Ale Week, apparently. I can't say I would have noticed, except that I received a gushing e-mail from CAMRA promoting it. They point out that the 'week' runs from 24 September to 4 October, helpfully explaining that this is 10 days, although it's 11 by my reckoning.

There's a free pint promotion from Punch Taverns, although you have to have an internet enabled smartphone to access the offer. That doesn't bother me too much. The fact that CAMRA is promoting a Punch Taverns offer does.

Last month Punch agreed to sell 158 pubs to New River, a property company with a record of converting pubs to other uses. This sale included the Roscoe Head in Liverpool, one of only five pubs in every Good Beer Guide, and the only one north of Cambridge. I've written about this issue and the local campaign on 31 August, 6 September, and 13 September.

My question is: why is CAMRA promoting an offer by a pub company that is no real friend of the Campaign, whose record with pubs is scarcely exemplary and who has put a cherished local at risk? It's a punch in the face for local campaigners who are trying to prevent or limit the damage this business is causing.

Bothy Roadshow hits Ainsdale

This musical evening is free. There is also a bar, which isn't!

Lager still leads the way - Cask Report 2015

The 2015 Cask Report has been published. Rather than summarise the whole thing, I'll pick out a few points that caught my attention.

1. It's estimated that cask ale is available in 70% of pubs. 
2. Cask ale sales grew by 0.2% by volume in 2014, whereas total on-trade beer sales declined 1.1% by volume in the same period.
3. Cask accounts for 17% of all on-trade beer (including lager).
4. Cask accounts for 57% of all on-trade ale; keg is therefore 43%.

My view of these figures is (in order):

1. Many of the pubs that don't sell real ale are disproportionately spread, often in areas of economic deprivation. Having drunk in such areas, I know that real ale is rare, and cheap keg and lager is the norm. Real ale tends to be in middle class and better-off working class areas.
2. It's the third successive year of cask ale growth, which looks rather good against a background of pub closures and declining on-trade beer sales, but sooner or later, loss of outlets will inevitably impact upon this small increase. The room for growth is finite, and shrinking.
3. &  4.  Although cask is outperforming keg, these figures tell us that lager makes up approximately 60% of all on-trade beer sales. As Fred of our local CAMRA branch is fond of pointing out, without lager drinkers, there'd probably be no real ale. This is one good reason why it is rather silly of a minority of real ale types to mock and belittle the beer choices of non-cask drinkers. 

With the exceptions of the ending of the beer duty escalator and a few small cuts in the levels of tax, the threats to pubs haven't gone away; consequently, despite the positive elements of this report, there still isn't much room for complacency. If anything, the threat to pubs from property speculators is increasing, and although obtaining ACV (asset of community value) status for a pub is certainly a help, it's not a silver bullet. It seems strange to be a doom-monger when there are so many real ale breweries and so many pubs selling their products, but unfortunately the foundations of this situation are, to quite a large extent, built on sand.

There's a lot more detail of the report in this article, which also reproduces the introduction written by Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden. You can see the full report here.

Stocks for Churchtown

The site of Stocks, a new micropub for Southport.
Photo from Google street view.

It looks as though we may be getting another micropub, or beer shop, in Southport, this time in the northern urban village of Churchtown. Subject to planning permission, Stocks will be opened on Manor Road, near the roundabout with Botanic Road, and will sell "a variety of high quality bottled beers, cask ales and keg beers for consumption on the premises and for take away". While they intend to stock beers from around the world, they say there will be an emphasis on local brews. Wine and soft drinks will also be available.

Churchtown isn't a beer desert: there are two old pubs within five minutes' walk of the proposed site of Stocks: the Bold and the Hesketh. I wrote about them both here last year. Both serve real ale, but neither has a particularly adventurous range. I assume what they supply suits their own customers, but there is a different type of customer to whom beer shops or micropubs such as the Stocks tend to appeal: drinkers of real ale, craft beer and increasingly available unusual bottled beers for whom the familiar regional brews have a limited attraction. I can't see that either existing pub need have much to fear from this new beer outlet: on the contrary, it may make Churchtown more of a destination for drinkers with three pubs within a short walk of each other, especially as they are on a direct and frequent bus route (the 49) from the centre of Southport.

The name Stocks is after the set of stocks dating from 1741 that can be found by the wall of the nearby St Cuthbert’s Church which overlooks the village green.

This is part of a series of articles that I am writing for the CAMRA column in our local paper, the Southport Visiter. Previous reviews are here.

The Guest House, Southport

A minute's walk from Southport's Lord Street is the Guest House on Union Street. The impressive exterior is half timbered, and inside the walls are wood-panelled, so people often assume it is much older than it really is: just over 100 years old. There are three separate rooms and a drinking area around the bar. Above the bar there are glass screens which many years ago used to be pulled down at closing time, but are now fixed. The interior is mostly unaltered and the pub has just been listed in CAMRA's National Inventory, a record of pub interiors worthy of both protection and celebration, the only pub in Southport with this distinction. Outside there is seating to the front of the pub and in the attractive courtyard to the rear, which has a covered area for smokers.

At the weekend there are 11 handpumps serving real ale, although this number may go down to 8 or 9 during the week. Theakstons Old Peculier, Jennings Cumberland and beers from the Caledonian range often feature, but there is always a changing selection of guest beers, often from local breweries such as Southport, Formby and Parkers. The pub is regularly in CAMRA's Good Beer Guide, which is based on beer quality.

There is also an extensive selection of malt whiskies. You can have a coffee, and they serve a range of light, reasonably priced snacks at lunchtime; sometimes in the evenings free nibbles are placed on the bar.

Thursday night is a popular quiz night, and there are two unamplified folk nights each month in the

front room: the first Monday is mostly songs, while the third Monday mostly folk tunes. They also have a solitary television. Generally, though, this is a pub where people go to meet friends and have a conversation. The clientele is fairly mixed in terms of age, gender and interests.

The Guest House is near all the main bus routes on Lord Street, and less than 10 minutes' walk from Southport railway station. Street parking only. Enquiries: 01704 537660.

This is part of a series of articles that I am writing for the CAMRA column in our local paper, the Southport Visiter. Previous reviews are here.

Two fingers from Brewdog

I wrote on the 3 September how Brewdog's campaign to wrest money from their fans to fund their business had caused offence: they've been accused of mocking homeless people, trans women and sex workers in their video, with the message: don't force them [i.e. Brewdog] to do such humiliating things to raise money.

Despite 20,508 signatures on the petition, Brewdog are unrepentant. Their response was: "If you believe we are ridiculing [trans people, homeless people, sex workers], you are either misguided, ill-informed or out of your tiny mind."

They're so full of themselves, they just don't get it, do they? Their intentions aren't really the point; if you cause this kind of offence inadvertently, the best thing to do is apologise. By accusing 20,508 petitioners of being misguided, ill-informed or out their tiny minds, they have shown a breath-taking arrogance, especially as I am sure they can understand why some people are upset, even if they think they are wrong to be so.

To give an analogy: I have in the past been politely stopped by women friends when I used the term 'girl' to describe a young adult woman. My response was to say sorry and correct myself. No offence intended or caused. If I had persisted in saying 'girl' in front of those women, then it would then have been clear I was deliberately trying to cause offence. This is in effect what Brewdog has done.

If they'd just said "sorry, didn't mean to upset anyone" and withdrawn the video, they'd have gained some respect for listening. As it is, they've shown what they are: arrogant wealthy businessmen who refuse to accept they may have made a mistake. This suggests to me they actually believe all their own hype, so you can add the word 'deluded' to the mix.

That tells me all I need to know about them really.

P.S at 4.22pm: 20,524 signatures now.

Delivering in West Lancs

A view of the canal from the beer garden
of the Ship in Haskane

I distribute the local CAMRA mag, Ale & Hearty, to certain pubs. As I have a car, I've agreed to cover some of the West Lancs pubs, most of which are either hard or impossible to get to by public transport from Southport where I live.

My friend Alan agreed to come along on yesterday's trip. I say 'agreed' but why would he say no to someone offering to drive him around half a dozen pubs? As well as being company, he was my surrogate drinker: I don't like diving into pubs with a pile of magazines, and then shooting out again without buying a drink, but I have to do that, or end up over the limit. In the event, I had three halves over five hours, but Alan had something in every pub. Neither of us had a bad beer all afternoon.

I had also decided to make notes about each pub and take pictures for the articles I've been writing in the Southport Visiter, which I also post on this blog (previous articles here). Someone once asked my when I'd agreed to start writing advertorial. The answer is I haven't, but I won't be writing negative comments about pubs for the paper for two reasons:

• The articles appear in the What's On section of the paper, and I believe the paper wants positive recommendations of nice pubs to go to. If I visit a pub and don't like what I find, I simply won't write about it. So far, I've made that decision once.
• Real ale for us is part of our social life - for licensees, it is part of their livelihood. For that reason, even if I can't stand a pub, I won't criticise it in the paper, assuming the editor would accept such an article. I reserve the right to write what I like here on this blog, but even then I'm not keen on being too damning.

The pubs we visited were:

1. The Ship, Haskayne.
2. The Kings Arms, Haskayne.
3. The Martin Inn, Ormskirk.
4. The Farmers, Burscough.
5. The Slipway, Burscough.
6. The Heatons Bridge, Scarisbrick.

Pubs 1, 4, 5, and 6 are canalside pubs, and 2 is very close. 

We were given a friendly and hospitable reception in all of them. Next week, I have a few more places to deliver to. I'd like to say, "Tough job, but someone's got to do it", but I'll be driving! Still, it is nice to visit them and bring myself up to date on what they're like.

My articles will appear here, as well in the Visiter, over the next couple of months.

Liars, damned liars, and health campaigners

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain, who attributed it to Benjamin Disraeli. The point has never been that statistics are inherently bad: it's that their value depends how you compile them, what you include, what you leave out, and whether you have cited them in an appropriate context.

So it is with the cost of alcohol use to the government in England, including the NHS, the police, the criminal justice system and the welfare system. The Institute of Economic Affairs is a think tank that promotes free market economics; it has recently issued a discussion paper called Alcohol and the Public Purse. The IEA is not a source I'd normally quote, but it is undeniably influential and, as far as I know, not known for any bias concerning alcohol per se either way. Its author is Christopher Snowdon, a libertarian opponent of state intervention in matters such as alcohol, smoking and obesity.

The report runs to more than 40 pages, but some of its conclusions include:

• The £20 billion cost of alcohol use to the UK quoted by public health campaigners is "extremely misleading, conflating social and economic costs (most of which are paid by individuals and businesses) with the costs to government departments (the cost to the taxpayer)".
• "The best estimate of the gross annual cost of alcohol consumption to state-run services, including the Department of Health, the Department of Work and Pensions, and the Home Office, is £3.9 billion in 2015 prices. This consists £1,954 million to treat alcohol-related injuries and ill health, £1,626 million to tackle alcohol-related crime, and £289 million paid in benefits to those who are unable to work as a result of alcohol-related mental or physical health problems."
• The IEA has previously said UK alcohol duties should be halved to make them less regressive and bring them closer to duties elsewhere in Europe. This would raise a total of £5,206 million, more if sales went up as a result. Even if they didn't, government income would comfortably exceed government expenditure on alcohol-related problems. 

Cutting duties isn't so unrealistic as it sounds, seeing that UK drinkers still pay 40% of the EU's entire alcohol tax bill, but we'd have to accept that it is politically improbable at present. 

You can find the full report here.

Will teetotaller Corbyn close down pubs?

Is this the only beer we'll have
under a Corbyn dictatorship?

In recent weeks, a few people have been saying to me: "You do know Jeremy Corbyn doesn't drink, don't you?" Well, yes, I did actually, and I'm not particularly worried. If he becomes prime minister, we will not be entering a new era of Prohibition. Although he has strongly-held political principles, he is a consensual politician who will not be setting murderous Stalinist gulags, as Toby Young ludicrously but indisputably insinuated on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions. In the 70s, Corbyn's politics were not particularly far to the Left of what was then the centre ground: we have all slept while the so-called centre ground has moved sharply to the Right.

I see no threat to pubs, drinking and real ale if he should take power, for the same reason that if I were in a position to become prime minister, sport would be safe, even though I have no interest in it whatsoever. Corbyn's teetotalism is a personal choice, not a political principle. Only zealots and bigots try to limit other people's legitimate pleasures simply because they don't share them.

The Morning Advertiser has published an article showing how over the years he has supported a wide range of pub-related motions in the House of Commons during his career, pointing out that: "In the last parliament, he was a signatory for many of Save the Pub group chair and Liberal Democrat MP, Greg Mulholland’s early day motions. Broadly speaking, he has put his name to parliamentary business which is against large pub companies, and has been a signatory for motions supporting licensees, music in pubs and community pubs in general."

I appreciate that not all drinkers will want to vote for Corbyn, but I don't see that anyone needs to be worried about pubs and beer should he win a General Election.

The full article listing many specific measures he has supported can be found here.