Adam Withrington: Bickering while Rome burns...

http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?storycode=64164

Some good points Adam. But well off the mark when scare mongering about breweries closing down. More breweries will thrive without the tie restricting trade, the only serious threat will be large brewers gobbling up smaller ones to increase market share. That sort of aggressive market acquisition might have to be legislated for.

As for the 'debate' being balanced and politicians needing to hear both sides of the argument - MPs have been hearing the pubco / tie BBPA side of the argument for twenty years without anyone getting in the way.

The Fair Pint argument - stand your ground and tell the truth - has rather comprehensively exposed their position as a perversion of the reality - at the head of their argument the tied pub industry HAS made billions of profits and HAS been wildly successful - at bottom the reality is that the top has been wildly profitable because the bottom - thousands of individual lessees businesses - has been dredged bare.

Your senior pubco contacts will not agree with this viewpoint of course even though it's painfully true and they cannot defend their position rationally. You see their problem is they strangled the golden goose thinking it couldn't be killed. Now it's a barren bird.