Phil. It's evident from observation that the majority of CEOs don't care one hoot about this industry. This industry is just a board game for their technical skills as accountants and lawyers to be played upon. It could be steel, automotive industry, bubblegum, frozen fish, transport or nay other area of commerce and they'd be doign what they've been doing. Difference with this industry is that they couldn't imagine just what a fertile backwater playground it was they were getting into at the beginning. Their problem is that they got carried away with the game and began to think they are invincible Avatars playing out a comic book drama. Nothing could go wrong. A twiddle here a fiddle there, a tweak and a sneak with a contract or two and it all brought in AWP jackpot returns. They will not, and do not want to, get directly involved with any debate about the business they are in because, fundamentally their passion is in generating cash out of doing nothing other than writing agreements which pass responsibility for everything onto others, maximising profit at the minimum outlay and ensuring they take no risk whatsoever. They have become sociopathic predators on a grand scale, asset strippers without conscience, torturers without consequence. They cannot have a one to one about the pub trade because, basically, they don't know anything about the pub trade and a one to one would expose this enormous weakness.

That's what is so amazing about the power they have ammassed around themselves and about the deliberate distance from the shop floor they have always maintained.