MPs' report on pubcos several weeks away

* By John Harrington
* 27/01/2010 17:31

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news.ma/ViewArticle?R=85733

I'll slap a pony on that Bob, I bet they do publish before the election. The committee's worked hard on this for a long time; they know BBPA and the pubcos have delayed, stalled, fudged and taken their time hoping to get past the election - when all the TISC BESC BISC work will be for nothing if it remains unpublished.

The committee looking at pubcos' behaviour has become a Slowly Slowly Catchy Monkey game particularly since committee members were threatened with prosecution by the bully boy pubcos if they published a damning report - remember those words of wisdom from Thorley and Tuppen in response to the committee report published last year? "the findings of a kangaroo court" (Thorley) and "we would be seeking legal advice were it nor for parliamentary privilege" (Tuppen).

Don't know about you Bob but if I were an MP sitting on the committee and had my constituents coming to me in considerable numbers about the dire straights they find themselves in, with stories of bullying tactics, broken promises, punishing rent reviews, exorbitant beer prices and userer investment terms on joint development projects, any scepticism about the behaviour of pubcos would fall away instantly and I'd recognise them for the rapacious greedy fly by night money grabbers they are.

Then I'd chat with my other cross party parliamentary colleagues about how can we throw the book at them legitimately with no possible come back, expose them for what they are, break their stranglehold on the nation's pubs and cook their goose once and for all?