I've waded through quite a bit of my backlog today; trying to establish what campaigns we need to get involved in; what we need to delegate and what to throw out. Some of the suggestions are quite alarming.
For instance, I recently welcomed the introduction of minimum pricing of alcoholic units in the supermarkets. It makes an easier playing field for pubs to compete with; and if people want irresponsible street drinking then they can pay for it thanks very much. You're more likely to find nicer folk in the pub than carting trolleys of slabs of cans of El Largerino from McTesbury's. Hopefully it's a wake-up call to those who get tanked up before heading out to our pubs in a fuzzy daze; putting more strains on the licensee and bar staff. A little step maybe; but it at least makes an effort to stop irresponsible drinking.
There seems to be a general backlash to this despite an agreement made seven years ago (which no-one can find); with someone even suggesting that under 18s can drink a beer in a pub so long as it is accompanied by a guardian and that the beer is under 5%. Barmy. And they've wrote bloody pages of this, thinking our sole mission is to convert people to drinking real ale. There's pages of sums and calculations of how it won't save pubs and money, but no-one seems to think how much nicer it would be.
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