Campaign for Real Pubs

In the September issue of the CAMRA newsletter What’s Brewing there’s a letter from Frank Mitchell of Claverdon which includes the following comments:

In my part of Warwickshire there are so few decent drinking pubs remaining compared to just a few years ago. Many of them have been taken over by people masquerading as chefs and attempting to become the latest gastro-venue and have discouraged drinkers from going there just for a drink.

In others the beer quality and service is so poor or the prices so unreasonable that customers have almost abandoned them altogether.

There is hardly a decent pub where you can meet friends just for a drink and a chat together without having a menu thrust at you or being made to feel guilty for occupying a table that food can be served on.

It has to be said that this reflects what I’ve been saying on here for the past four years. The same is a major problem in Cheshire. Of course food has its place in pubs (as Mr Mitchell later acknowledges), but there comes a point where it dominates to the exclusion of all else. The core purpose of a pub is as a social meeting place where people will gather over a few drinks, yet nowadays you see so many press articles that assume that the menu is the main attraction. I’d say, once more than four-fifths of customers are there just to eat, you’ve lost it. But even a sprinkling of social drinkers can keep your pub authentic.

So, maybe as CAMRA has saved real ale, we need a Campaign for Real Pubs to save pubs. Pubs that work as pubs should, that don’t make casual customers feel unwelcome, that cultivate sociability, and that don’t make food the centre of their offer. This applies especially outside major urban centres, but within them too. Obviously the smoking ban, beer duty hikes, the demonisation of “one-drink driving” and the general anti-alcohol climate have all had their effect, but such pubs do still survive and deserve to be celebrated.

CAMRA’s National Inventory and the additional regional lists would be a good starting point. A few of the pubs on there won’t qualify, but the vast majority will. I’d doubt whether any Wetherspoons would be included, or any chain dining pubs, and many of the specialist beer pubs concentrate on that aspect of the business so much that they fail in the basic social function. On the other hand, if they attract a good number of customers who aren’t just there for the beer, as with the Barrels in Hereford, they might qualify.

Maybe I should start a blog of Real Pubs as a counterpoint to Closed Pubs, so people couldn’t accuse me of being unrelentingly negative...

A tax too far

Words fail me...

The Liberal Democrats are drawing up plans for a controversial new ‘tipple tax’ on every drink sold in a pub – despite warnings it will cripple the struggling industry.

Policy documents to be discussed at next month’s Lib Dem conference in Birmingham suggest the party should push for councils to be given new powers to levy a ‘small per drink surcharge’ in bars and pubs.

The document suggests the money raised could offset additional policing and health costs that drinkers impose on councils, and therefore residents, in many towns and cities.

The plan was condemned last night by both the drinks industry and the party’s Coalition partners. Experts warned it would pile financial pressure on pubs, which are already closing at the rate of 25 a week.

Do these people have any grasp on reality whatsoever? It seems they have come to believe their own hysterical propaganda in which Britain is in a fatal spiral of rising alcohol consumption and drink-related health problems, whereas in reality pretty much the opposite is true. Not to mention the fact that we already have the third highest alcohol duties in the world.

Six into two does go

Northenden is a South Manchester suburb which must be typical of many places throughout Britain. Sandwiched between upmarket Didsbury and sink estate Wythenshawe, it’s a middling kind of place, with a surprisingly extensive local shopping centre along the main Palatine Road. Maybe about ten years ago, it had six pubs, unusually all situated south of the main road – the Jolly Carter, the Spread Eagle, the Church, the Crown, the Tatton Arms (pictured) and the Farmers Arms. Now, only two are left, the Crown and the Farmers, which were probably the smallest of the six.

Maybe that is a bit of an extreme case but, on the other hand, there are plenty of places that have lost two or three out of six, or the equivalent, and this is somewhere depopulation and poverty cannot be blamed. This should serve as an object lesson to those blinkered individuals who continue to insist, in the face of an ever-growing mountain of evidence, that the British pub trade remains fundamentally healthy and losses have only been at the margins.

On a similar note, it’s worth mentioning the scenic B5470 road between Macclesfield in Cheshire and Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire. Not so long ago, this had five pubs along it – the Rising Sun and Robin Hood in the village of Rainow, the Highwayman in a picturesque location a couple of miles east of Rainow, and the Bull’s Head and Swan in the village of Kettleshulme. Now, only the Swan is still open, and this not in the deep countryside but in a desirable area within twenty miles of the centre of Manchester.

Not so ordinary

Back in the 1970s, most British brewers just produced Mild (at around 1033 OG) and Bitter (at around 1038 OG). Choice, and a contrast in flavours, was achieved by switching between brewers, not within an individual brewer’s range. There were a handful of premium beers, such as Ruddles County, Marstons Pedigree and Wadworths 6X, and these got the recognition as the beers you would go out of your way to sample. Inevitably, these beers gained a reputation and became the standard-bearers of the “real ale revival”. The fact that they had memorable brand names rather than just being “Bloggs’ Bitter” must have helped.

But times change, and recently we have seen a number of brewers reducing the strength of these “premium beers” because they were felt to be too strong for the current climate of sobriety and health obsession.

However, rather than doing this, shouldn’t the brewers be doing more to promote their classic “ordinary bitters” in the 3.5-4.0% ABV strength band? These beers, which manage to extract huge depths of flavour and character from a very modest, quaffable strength, are surely the most distinctive achievement of British brewing, and cover a vast spectrum of colour, flavour and character.

Locally, Robinson’s Unicorn at 4.2% is a bit too strong to qualify, but both Holts and Lees bitters are excellent brews when in good condition. Just considering the family brewers, a selection of Timothy Taylors Bitter, Batemans XB, Adnams Southwold Bitter, Harveys Sussex Best and Hook Norton wouldn’t disgrace any bar. I used to love Brakspear’s when brewed in Henley, but have not had enough of the Wychwood version to be able to judge it.

Incidentally, I was recently surprised to learn that Robinson’s are now selling more of the pale, somewhat hoppy 3.8% Dizzy Blonde than their traditional mainstay, the 4.2% Unicorn. Dizzy Blonde was originally just produced as a seasonal beer but has now become their best seller. Initially it was a bit bland, but more recently it has gained more hop character and is now, when well-kept, an enjoyable beer.

FINAL SOLUTION NOW POSSIBLE

Image from here

I watched a documentary the other night about a woman living with the sins of her Nazi camp commandant father who took perverse pleasure in abusing, humiliating, torturing, and murdering Jews.

It was a harrowing film. As I watched it, I began to question this assertion our movement has that people with unpopular lifestyles are being treated as Jews and other undesirables were treated over many years by the Nazis before they designed "The Final Solution" to wipe the race they disliked so much from the face of the earth.

The Nazi's daughter, Monika Hertwig, met a former inmate of the camp, Helen Jonas, whose life was saved because the camp commandant liked to have her around as a housemaid to bully, physically abuse and ridicule. She witnessed and felt the hell of that era.

During that emotional meeting, you could feel the weight of that burden of shame on Monika and the sheer anger deep inside Helen at what this woman's father had done to her family and friends.

Then Monika said something that made me think again to the effect of (if not verbatim): "I was told that people were taught to hate the Jews, to believe they were diseased and they carried disease that could harm good families..."

Helen, angry, jumped in defence of Jews of course and Monika clarified that it was NOT what she thought. She knew nothing until she began to ask but knew that was how it was done and how it began.

Today's modern persecuted groups which includes smokers at the top of the list, are not being transported to death camps nor are we being tortured in a physical sense, if we can claim to be harassed and abused in a psychological way, and you could say that we are not losing family members through horrific means.

But then when you look again, and try to remove the blinkers of what you are not supposed to think, the psychological parallels are obvious.

Smokers are thought to be dangerous to children and many smoker parents do have enormous rifts with their children brainwashed by anti-smoker propaganda over a generation.

Smokers have been sacked from work for not smoking at work, they have been excluded from every public place and now denied healthcare.

The state does not make smokers wear any physical form of identification like the Yellow Star but it is intent on outing them and forcing them into situations where they can be easily identified and forced to change their culture, or be excluded from society, by the corporate lies backed by political ideology.

Smokers, like Nazi Jews, have had property taken from them just ask Nick Hogan who was the first smoker jailed for his beliefs and political stance.

And then there are others who are inventing lies to get law abiding smokers thrown out of their own homes. Australia is the world leader in following Nazi methods to engineer enforced change.

Now a new fraud is being pushed into the public psyche to ensure that smokers'properties become worthless, and they become homeless and unemployable.

"According to a recent study led by Georg Matt of San Diego State University, nicotine will persist in a house previously occupied by smokers even if the rooms are given fresh layers of paint, new carpeting and standard cleaning."

One comment I saw on this drew the same comparisons as came to my mind:

"We should start an e-petition to ban the open discrimination and hatred of this minority group of smokers. The Nazis also seized Jewish property as the next phase of their hate crime. Are we next?"

But my favourite had to be this one from a commentor on the Huffington Post scare story even though I doubt that common sense is worth much to those with Smokerphobia - a phobic mental health condition that should be further investigated :

You know what they say - "50% of smokers die prematurel­­y because they smoke". It can also be said with equal credibilit­­y that 50% of people die prematurel­­y because they don't smoke. All the rest don't die prematurel­­y and on average not much is remarkable at all. If you bought into second hand smoke and now third. How much more can they sell you, without raising your suspicions­­? You're either awfully gullible, or you are being paid for your efforts.

I just want it all to stop and for the general public not to be duped by paid-for propaganda as the Germans were back in the 1930s. Just because this denormalisation, stigmatisation, humiliation, theft, scaremongering, and exclusion is not aimed at Jews or any other religious or ethnic group doesn't mean to say it isn't happening.

History is meant to be a warning not a guide on how to get rid of and punish people you don't like without consequence. It is time some realistic perspective was brought to the smoking issue before the paranoia spirals to dangerous levels.

SELECTIVE NHS ABANDONS THOSE IN NEED

Image from this Smokerphobic site WARNING. It WILL offend.

Frank Davis wrote an excellent piece about the sheer propaganda lies chucked out by those hypocritical, self interest "doctors" who are wasting our precious NHS resources on scaring the public to death by inventing "epidemics."

Now if this could all be left to their own phobic imaginations I'd be happy to get on with my life and perhaps turn a blind eye to their paranoid ramblings.

However, this is past a joke and their prejudices are becoming dangerous to health and the stability of a decent society.

GPs have signed off a series of sweeping referral restrictions by NHS managers that will bar smokers and overweight patients from being referred for surgery, as PCTs across the country bring in new cost-saving restrictions.

I really could suggest better ways for them to spend the money than funding the ideological aim of a smoke free and skinny world but this isn't about saving costs.

We know that smokers more than pay their own cost of healthcare through high taxes imposed in many cases over a lifetime.

For example, I have paid tax on my tobacco for 43 years and so far have not needed one tobacco related piece of healthcare. I think I'll be more than entitled when and if my time comes. Despite this, the NHS would discriminate against me unless I surrender to the bullying and quit as they demand.

GPs will also be prevented from referring smokers for any orthopaedic surgery until they have been referred for smoking cessation.

Unethical "doctors" should be sacked and hauled up before the General Medical Council for encouraging such discrimination against patients who need medical care.

Dr Tony Kostick, joint chair of NHS Hertfordshire's clinical executive committee and chair of East & North Herts GP Commissioning Consortium, insisted the move was based on ‘sound' clinical evidence.
He said: ‘It's divisive in the sense some GPs don't want to confront the rationing debate. We spend fortunes on treatments of limited clinical value.'

Funny that as anecdotal evidence says quite the opposite. I think he should broaden his mind and his expertise. I've had FIVE Caesarians and always come out of it better than my non-smoking counterparts. Nurses were amazed at how quick I was on my feet after each one.

There was also no difference in the outcome for me as a lifelong smoker than anyone else who fell off a horse and needed surgery for a broken arm. And a commenter on Frank's blog has her own experience to share that puts the NHS propaganda in doubt :

Brenda says:
August 27, 2011 at 2:39 pm
I had minor surgery this year. The anaesthetist asked if I smoked and I replied that I did not. He said that would make my recovery from the anaesthetic quicker and easier.

I, along with 3 other women (all much younger than me) having the same surgery, went conveyor style into the operating theatre. I was 3rd in the queue.
Back in the ward I was the only one awake. I had my sandwich and drink and got up, got dressed and waited to be discharged. When the anaesthetist came round I told him that I had been a heavy smoker for over 50 years !! The other three women were just coming round (two were being sick and one was crying)
I left the ward and went out to have a smoke until my transport home arrived.

I wonder how these so-called "caring" professionals can be so inhumane. Are they stupid? Are they cruel? Are they bigots? Are we so low as human beings that we should even be denied the same healthcare as anyone else?

A spokesperson for NHS Hertfordshire said the changes had been legally approved, and were necessary to ‘make absolutely the best use of NHS resources'.

Perhaps they could drop the politics around health, stop funding propanda, false studies from self interest groups and academics, sack unethical doctors, get rid of the over paid top management, and go back to being a reactive service that actually does what it is supposed to do - treat sick people without fear or favour - and the NHS might find that it has more than it needs.

Sadly the only voice of reason, in this so called debate on how they can convince themselves that exclusion is a good thing, is as selective in the groups he feels worthy of compassion.

But Dr Mike Ingram, chair of the single-practice Red House Consortium and a member of Hertfordshire LMC, said: ‘Patients' access to services should be based on the care they require and not on a discriminatory policy.

He said : "I'm very worried about denying people care on the basis they are fat."

It looks like the legal details of our exclusion of the NHS are being worked out and finalised as I write :

Dr Nigel Watson, chief executive of Wessex LMCs and chair of the GPC's commissioning and service development subcommittee, said he was discussing the restrictions with the BMA's legal department.

He said : "My understanding is you cannot discriminate against patients on the basis of lifestyle choices."

Erm ... yes you can in the workplace so why not in the NHS. The groundwork has already been laid.

UPDATE 28/08/11 : This post reveals how NHS propaganda is throwing away £84 million of NHS funds a year

NHS Stop Smoking Services don’t increase smokers’ chances by any significant margin and are therefore a complete waste of valuable NHS resources.

I wonder how the NHS could better use that cash, and the very high salaries paid to those above who spend their time on designing exclusion policies so they can keep their wages, if it did was it was founded to do - spend money on direct patient care not political ideology.

Responsibility or appeasement?

If you were running any kind of business, you would obviously, unless you were a crook, want to do so in a responsible manner. So, if you were running a brewery, what would you do? You would aim to comply with all relevant legislation, to be open about what ingredients you were using, not to hold out your products as something they weren’t, not to sell or promote them to minors, and not to advertise them in a way that implied they might contribute to sexual success or would get you drunk quicker. You would recognise that you were selling a product that a small minority of customers might abuse, but provided your business was conducted in an open, legal and above-the-board manner, that would be their responsibility, not yours. If your business was successful and well-established, you might even contribute a bit towards programmes to rehabilitate alcoholics, but that wouldn’t mean that you accepted blame for their problems.

However, Stefan Orlowski, the Managing Director of Heineken UK, doesn’t seem to think that goes far enough. He believes that his industry needs to actively engage with health professionals in an attempt to reduce alcohol misuse.

But, in accepting the health professionals’ definition of alcohol misuse, he is batting on a losing wicket from the start. They believe he is involved not in a legitimate business but in a “toxic trade”. There can never be any final settlement with them. Every concession granted will only be met with a demand for more. He only needs to look at the tobacco industry to see the likely outcome.

He prints on all his bottles and cans the made-up “official guidelines” on safe drinking levels. But he knows that a large proportion of his customers cheerfully ignore these, and if they all followed them to the letter, the pub trade would be devastated and the British brewing and distilling industries grievously harmed.

Perhaps he is being clever and playing a long game in the belief that, given time, the neo-Prohibitionist threat will abate, as it did in the past. But the example of tobacco is not encouraging. Is a prolonged managed decline and surrender to restriction the best future that can be expected? Maybe the long-term interests of the drinks industry would be better served by adopting a more robust and combative stance rather than by endless grovelling and appeasing. Wetherspoon’s Tim Martin, for example, would never be so defeatist.

He may even damage his own business relative to others by being too eager to embrace its enemies.

As an example, we recently withdrew a popular and highly profitable white cider brand because it had become part of a category of drinks increasingly chosen for price and alcoholic strength alone. It no longer had a place in our business.

So he gave Diamond White the chop. But Aston Manor are still happily making Frosty Jack’s, and no doubt taking a lot of what once was Heineken’s business. If you take a high moral stance, there will always be other producers willing to come in below you, while still fully adhering to the law. Alcohol is far more suited than tobacco products to small-scale, under-the-radar production.

ASH LOVE HOCKNEY'S NEW WORK

Oooh - I do love David Hockney. The image above is his latest piece of artwork designed to show the meaning of freedom.



It is called Freedom Is Choice and of course it is whatever psychobabble the fake charity ASH and its cronies spout to create fear and loathing of smokers and redefine the meaning of this important concept. Being free to chose to consume a legal product is obviously a main plank of what freedom is about. Hockney said :



"Pettiness, meanness, dreariness. That's all I see from them. Meanness of spirit is very bad for the health no matter how long you live. Can't they look into their own hearts and understand that many people in England are fed up with unthinking, bossy-boots politicians that believe us to be infants."



He could be talking about ASH here. The very organisation that would scurrilously claim that smokers kill others without being honest about the methods by which this ludicrous and slanderous claim is reached. With ventilation now so efficient it can make the air inside cleaner than outside, and a choice of venue if only we were free to chose one, all make the claim that smoking harms others defunct.



*



ASH Scotland tweeted news of Hockney's new work, which was retweeted by Chris Snowdon. I guess they must like it. I've just been over there to have a look if they had anymore to say about it on their website and I feel quite dirty now so I'll have to rush of and have a bath after posting this in case I catch their prejudice and stupidity in some kind of fourth hand way.



They say they work to stop children and young people smoking and yet they create panic among Scottish politicians to "do something" which creates the perfect climate for a rise in child and youth smoking.



I mean this ridiculous idea to force tobacconists to register as evil drug barons to sell cigarettes will not have one iota of effect given that the growing and lucrative black market, supported and encouraged by ASH's policies, do not have to comply with the same policy.



Way to go ASH - it looks like you're obviously on the side of Big Tobacco after all.



* I don't know how to take a screen shot so I reproduced ASH Scotland's tweet the old fashioned way - printed, scanned in and uploaded.



UPDATE : My technical expert teenage son showed me how to do it. That's two new skills I've learned today. Thanks Frank Davis for the other one.

HUMILIATING PEOPLE WHO SMOKE

It is no surprise to me that the US now encourages a policy of open humiliation of smokers and forcing them into dangerous places. I would not allow myself to become a second class citizen in a country that has squeezed tax from my product of choice since I was 8 years old. I don't know why these smokers hang their heads in such shame and apologise for their very existence.



Of course America is used to treating people less than human if they don't fit the American dream. The Native American Indian tribes have been shafted for years



The American Govt has refused to honour treaties after stealing land that was not their's to take and now a photographer Aaron Huey is raising awareness of how these people have been forced effectively to live on Prisoner of War camps in abject poverty.



Some members of The Lakota Tribe of Sioux Indians don't like the portrayal of their culture as one of such social depravity for the consumption of White Americans but recognise the importance of getting word out that they have been continually ignored and sidelined and their treaties dishonoured. They say :



Huey’s photographs depict high unemployment, broken families, alcohol abuse and life expectancy lower than that in Afghanistan. The statistics are shocking.



But more than that, Huey’s photographs show the legacy of the lies and broken treaties of the US government stretching back over a century. If the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) had been observed, then the Lakota and associated Sioux tribes would own land stretching across five states.



To refer to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation as a prisoner of war camp may seem incendiary to some, but this is how many of the Lakota see their existence. The Black Hills have been stolen and the Lakota live on the most infertile land fenced in on all sides by an encroaching dominant culture that they’ve predominantly experienced as oppressing and damaging. The solutions are not simple, but awareness and a will to action is.



Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is prisoner of war camp #344.









In the same way that suggesting smokers are a group that is being openly discriminated against, mistreated, abused, humiliated and even dismissed when they complain about newspapers openly calling for violence against them is somehow "offensive", so too are the Native Americans fearful of the incendiary suggestion that natives defeated by the US are forced to live in disgusting PoW camps in case that might offend too.



Truth hurts it seems but rather than take it on board and face the fact that something needs to be redressed, the US - like too many other western countries today - cling to their prejudices and throw money at them to ensure the underprivileged and unpopular stay oppressed and silent.



Even when the majority of Americans agree the Indians should have some autonomy, the US state still wants to get its grubby hands on the Indian tobacco so they can tax it to the hilt and steal that money from its rightful owners.



It appears that in the US if you are a member of a native tribe or a smoker then you are worth nothing but the time spent on working out how to exclude, humiliate and treat you less than human. All that matters is money - not health or well being or happiness. Or as the president of the Seneca Nation put it :



"New York State government officials don't get it. They are willing to ignore those treaties and the will of the people of New York in their endless quest to generate new revenues to balance their budget..."



Shame they did not ignore the alleged "will of the people" in hounding smokers out of existence. It seems that Govts only support those who support what Govts want - or in the case of smoker restrictions - listening the prejudice of self interest groups that pretend to be charities and pretend to speak for smokers when in reality they speak for no one but themselves.

Urban pubs hammered

The Western Mail reports that, in a recent auction of pubs held at the Celtic Manor Hotel near Newport, only one of the nine pubs on offer was sold, six failed to meet their reserve prices and two received no bids at all.

This is sadly symptomatic of the general malaise of the pub trade in urban areas outside major town and city centres. Prominent South Wales CAMRA activist Arfur Daley looked into the pubs being sold and said:

One thing I noticed about these pubs is that a lot of them are urban and they lack outdoor smoking areas.

Some of them had been quite successful in the past but once the smoking ban came in that was the big problem. That was their downfall.

A rare and welcome example of a CAMRA member actually taking the blinkers off and recognising the disaster that has overtaken the pub trade all around him.

Rodney Cave, an independent licensed property valuer, said it was time for the Government to call a review of the smoking ban, adding pressure also needed to be put on banks to lend to those looking to invest in pubs and hotels.

“I attribute this disastrous decline in the licensed trade to the smoking ban, certainly,” he said.

“While you can make a case for saying smoking is harmful, it would be perfectly suitable to provide a separate room for smokers.

“Now the people who would have been down their local are at home with cans of lager from the supermarket.”

He said the trend has led to a decline in social contact, especially in less prosperous areas where, he claimed, families cannot afford to pay for expensive meals and “going out for one or two pints is all that their budget allows.”

It is precisely these areas, he said, where the worst-hit pubs are.

And exactly the same kind of thing has been happening in working-class areas the length and breadth of the country, for example as reported here in Denton and Audenshaw.

It would be interesting to see whether some of those who bang on in the comments here about the rude health of some parts of the pub trade would have the guts to take on some of these South Wales pubs. The asking prices are so low that, if you could make a go of one, it could prove a goldmine. Funny how nobody was biting, though, isn’t it?

This coincides with the launch this week of Antony Worrall Thompson’s petition on the government website calling for a review of the smoking ban. If you care about the future of the pub trade, please sign it here.

Incidentally, the headline on the newspaper article is wrong – it clearly should refer to “urban pubs”, not “rural pubs”.

H/t to Simon Clark at Taking Liberties.

The ox loves the yoke

I was reading an article recently which said that, in the era of the Suffragettes, a substantial proportion of women didn’t actually want to be given the vote. From the perspective of a hundred years later, this may seem unlikely, but at the time I have no doubt it was true.

More than once, commenters on this blog have said that many smokers actually support the blanket smoking ban. That may seem equally unlikely, but that too contains a certain element of truth. Indeed, I have spoken to one or two such myself. Now I can see how a smoker might support some legal restrictions on smoking in public places. That is an intellectually defensible position, in the same way as a motorist might to a greater or lesser extent support the use of speed cameras and road humps.

But to be in favour of a blanket ban in any indoor public place is taking things to a completely different dimension. I mean, something that you do personally, and that is entirely legal, but you don’t believe you should actually be able to do it anywhere. What kind of twisted thinking is that?

All I can conclude is that these people have been so brainwashed by years of hysterical antismoking propaganda to come to believe that they really are contemptible, weak-willed, dirty, smelly, inadequate second-rate human beings. Self-loathing has been inculcated into them. Just as in the 1900s many women believed their sex was inherently inferior in judgment and intellectual capability to men. Something similar has happened to a proportion of the oppressed throughout history.

And it is completely wrong to claim that all, or the vast majority, of smokers are hopeless, enslaved addicts. As James Rhodes explains here, many smokers find smoking actively enjoyable. “Every puff is like a little hug,” he says. Is that really much different from scoffing “naughty but nice” cream cakes, something else that we are constantly told is unhealthy and shows a lack of self-control?

Another one down

Sad news that the Tiviot pub in Stockport town centre is to be demolished in eight weeks’ time. Apparently the building has been condemned as unsafe by the council, but it would not have been allowed to get into such a state if it had been seen as having more of a future.

Yes, it was tatty in places, but going through the door was like entering a timewarp back into the 1950s. It even still had wrought iron bar fittings – you don’t seen many of those around nowadays. Until fairly recently, it was one of the last Robinson’s pubs in Stockport to serve Mild and Best Bitter into oversize glasses using electric metered pumps. Licensee Dave Walker was one of the longest-serving in the Robinson’s estate, and had taken over the tenancy from his father.

Not surprisingly, the clientele tended towards the more mature end of the spectrum. It could be busy at lunchtimes, but was often quiet in the evenings. It was the epitome of what Cooking Lager would dismiss as “dumpy old men’s pubs”, and all the better for it.

We will not see its like again.

MORE DANGEROUS THAN SMOKING

This sort of gruesome incident of a python eating a toddler is enough to put anyone off keeping a snake as a pet.



Personally, I've never liked reptiles. They are slimy, revolting, and scary and there is nothing cuddly or companionable about them.



The couple who were more intellectually inadequate than intentionally neglectful, in my opinion, paid the ultimate price for that stupid or macho choice of pet. They lost their beloved daughter and were punished for it with 12 years in prison.



The snake was taken in by a rescue organisation and appears to have more respect from the state than the tragic couple and their family who may never comes to terms with what happened and how they facilitated it. You could say "it serves them right" but the malice is more in the mind of the state in looking for someone to blame than it was in their mind at the time of their daughter's death. If it was my kid, I'd want to slit that damn snake's throat.



I don't know how easy it is to get an exotic pet in the UK, or if you need a licence, but it appears there is black market for it. And I wonder how the authorities can check on households with this type of pet to make sure it doesn't get hungry enough to eat their kids or is able to escape to eat the neighbour's cat



There are obviously other exotic reptiles on the loose and the very thought of it makes my skin crawl.



They say that alleged sightings of black panthers in the UK began in the late 1970s after new rules on keeping wild pets led to many being abandoned in the British countryside.



That's why I also get a bit tetchy when I hear of this kind of enterprise. The thought of just one crocodile ever being able to make a dash for freedom and then snacking on unsuspecting picnickers by the riverside somewhere nearby is too horrible to contemplate.

SUPPORT FAIRNESS AND CHOICE

I see that Antony Worrall Thompson's E-Petition has finally been accepted by Govt. It is now the duty of everyone in this movement to do all they can to promote it and encourage others to sign.



Forest is making cards that can be given out to people who are not online and I am more than willing to help distribute these to smokers and their non-smoker friends both inside and outside of pubs and other hospitality establishments. I think all of us who have been making a noise online should get behind this and do our bit.







Of course there are other petitions which we should also sign and ask others to support. Links can be found at the end of this post. I've also signed this one although I do think ASH's days of leeching from the public purse are almost over. The DoH has achieved it's aim of promoting anti-smokerism to the point of smokerphobia among the general public by using ASH as a front group.



State health persecutor Anne Milton has already told me twice that no decision has been taken on whether ASH will be awarded our cash in 2011/2012. Maybe she doesn't need them anymore or recognises that now Big Pharma picks up most of ASH's tab.



I agree with Dick Puddlecote that we need to share AWT's E-petition around the web. I'll be posting links on Twitter and Facebook every day and there is a direct link to the E-petition on the left hand side of this blog.



All we are really asking for here is choice and fairness for both sides of this debate. I fail to see why such simple moral qualities are so hard to get back in our society.



Getting back some sort of perspective and common sense on the smoking issue is also why I've also signed this one calling for the price of tobacco in the UK to be made the same as the EU. I think it could be better worded but for me the only way to ensure that young people do not start smoking before they are old enough to make their own, informed choices, is to end the lucrative, unregulated, black market trade. This has become strong and dangerous because of prohibition and the unrealistic high cost of legal tobacco.

SMALL WORLD BIG HEART

I've been in a communication black hole in the middle of the Lincolnshire Wolds and cut off from all news, blogs, Facebook. Even my mobile phone got tossed into my tent at the start of the Small World Festival and was then ignored while I was there from Friday morning to late Sunday night.



Organised and run by Susi Mulligan and Melvin Anderson at Badger Farm, Asterby, near Louth, it may be a small festival but it has a huge heart, a great crowd of regular attenders and some fantastic music.







I do love a bit of reggae and so Jah Misson Vibes and Dubble Bubble were headline acts for me. As a bit of an oldie, I guess I like to be snuggled up in my tent by midnight to get out of the rain or cold.



I've listened to Dubble remotely while huddled in a sleeping bag for that last few years but this year it was all a bit spoiled by the couple in the next door tent. Their raucous love making was rather distracting and however much me and my other half tried to ignore the humping and heavy breathing, the noise just got more invasive.



I was tempted to hand the lady an award for a sterling performance when I saw her the next day. She had to be faking it, I assured my other half. We were so worn out after all their hard work that we felt the need to get up at 3am (yes, it went on for hours) for a cup of tea and a cigarette.



At least they got out of it unscathed unlike another couple at a previous festival who needed the help of the onsite Red Cross Ambulance when their genital piercings got hooked up during the act, or so Festival gossip said.







The Band from County Hell is another one of my favourites for the foot-stomping Irish music they play. As I've seen them before, and it was such a gorgeous day, me and my other half decided to walk in the Redhill Nature Reserve which is all around Badger Farm as the music blared out from festival across the beautiful landscape.







As much as I love the music, the festival atmosphere attracts me just as much. I love that medieval feeling of walking around a basic communal camp where people are dressed like minstrels, fairies, jesters, with painted faces, pagan hairstyles, eating and juggling fire, or playing Poi and the stalls with all manner of Bohemian goods and wares and crystals for the spiritual.



I also love the crew team. I rarely see them at any other time but when we all get together again it's great fun. We work a daily three hour shift on the gate and then the rest of the time is ours to enjoy. We have communal barbeques and share most things other than lots of laughter including the beer, wine and spirits.



One group that I haven't seen at Festival for a couple of years now is Achanak. I recall dancing all the way through their performance and loving it. The year they played at Small World was the same year that Wellhard from Eastenders died. The band played a track in tribute and memory of this much loved hound.









The site holds two festivals. EcoFest is held each June over the summer solstice and Small World in mid August. At Eco, I remarked about how much I loved one of the crew's baccy tin. I said it was a great thing to have because when the plain packaging of tobacco comes in, then there will be generations prohibited from enjoying the simple art work on such packs which will become collectors' items.



The lady in question gave the tin to me at this festival just because I liked it. I was both delighted and humbled by the gift which she gave to me knowing how strongly I feel about this issue. I'm known as the smoking ban lady due to the fact that each festival I attend, the subject inevitably comes up ... a lot ... as does politics even though most people there are about as political as Rasta Mouse.











It's a shame my new tin is spoiled by the anti-smoker warnings and as this is a special edition tin, then I wonder why a health warning is necessary. Anyone who has never smoked is not going to buy a limited edition tin with raw tobacco in it before they start with a pack of ready rolled and packaged cigarettes from over the counter. Doesn't everyone in the whole world from cradle to grave know that smoking is bad for you?



The image on the back of old hands could have been worse such as a plastic cancerous throat but it served as an illustrative example when I told my Festival Friends about David Hockey's view of "the uglification of Britain."



The recent riots was another topic of conversation and it hit a chord with a lot of the young people there when I explained my belief that we've lost moral guidance and faith in the concept that our leaders know what is best for us from corruption of politicians, the media, right down to the chav on the street who will take what he or she otherwise won't get.



My own view is the media has forgotten its reason and purpose. It is supposed to speak for us to those at the top who make laws against us. It now works the other way around and enforces acceptance of views from the top down to those of us at the bottom.



Just about everyone there that I spoke to agreed that the smoking propaganda is mostly shit and based on paranoia and phobia but one young man who works in a hospital said smokers cost too much to the NHS.



Rage was suppressed as I said that as a child smoker who has paid tax on my product for 43 years, I still had a fair amount in the coffers waiting to be spent on my own health treatment in later life and it was something that I should be more than entitled to at the end of my life should I need NHS "care".



We also discussed this new concept of the "Progressive" and generally agreed that "progressive" does not just mean "different." Sometimes in the race to move forward, we actually find ourselves going back because the changes are not good or better than what we already have. Or as one young lady put it : "Why fix what isn't broken. They've tried fixing even the stuff that didn't need it and now everything is fucked."



Perhaps one example of this was the retired teacher I spoke to. He told me that he was burned out after years of working with kids who were labelled as having emotional or behavioural difficulties. It wasn't the teaching so much as the endless bureaucracy, form filling, tick boxing, and ultimate lack of motivation.



Before NuLabour he taught the kids enterprise skills. They had to design a product, market it, sell it, and work it at a profit. The kids chose what to spend that profit on at the end of the year. Sometimes they would go on a group trip somewhere special and sometimes they would split the costs and spend the money how they liked. As kids with little chance of gaining qualifications for professions or ever likely to go into public service, it was an idea that gave them hope and aspiration as well as skill.



After NuLabour, the head of Dept at his school changed. The new head of Dept decided it was wrong for the kids to keep the money to themselves. In future, the profit had to be donated to charity. The kids lost interest, some acted dishonestly and pocketed instead of handing over their own cash, and the whole scheme was eventually not worth the trouble.

Not in front of the children

The Sunday Telegraph reports that two mothers were refused white wine spritzers in a City of London pub because the barperson thought it inappropriate for them to be drinking alcohol in front of their children. Now obviously this is just a one-off aberration, and if it was generally adopted it would kill the “family dining” market stone dead.

But it is symptomatic of the growing stigmatisation of alcohol that such an opinion was expressed at all. It’s a more extreme version of the refusal to serve a pregnant woman even a single drink. The view is becoming increasingly common than any quantity of alcohol is incompatible with any responsible activity (see my recent poll about lunchtime drinking at work) and we are heading towards a situation where drinking becomes an activity that has to be ringfenced from the rest of society.

Decline and fall

A year ago today, I started a blog entitled Closed Pubs. This was originally prompted by a non-beer-related forum, where people were invited to put forward some interesting sights in the then new Google StreetView. I posted a couple of views of boarded-up pubs near to me, and then thought that, since there were so many closed pubs around the country, I could turn it into a blog. So I did.

So far I have featured 207 pubs. Some are ones known to me, some suggested by correspondents, some I have spotted on Internet searches. It has featured town-centre pubs, inner-city pubs, suburban pubs, estate pubs, classic roadhouses, village pubs, isolated country pubs, indeed pretty much every kind of pub known to man. I’d like to record my thanks to those who have e-mailed me with suggestions for the blog.

There can be no doubt that over the past few years the British pub has experienced an unprecedented holocaust. Before then, unless it was due to population decline in the locality or redevelopment, pubs scarcely ever closed. But now, it seems that pretty much everywhere you go you are confronted with the depressing sight of a closed and boarded pub.

I don’t for a minute claim that all of it is due to the smoking ban – indeed some of the closed pubs pictured predate the smoking ban by many years. But only the most self-deluding antismoker would claim that the smoking ban has not played a significant part in pub closures over the past four years. For a lot of pubs it seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

And the question has to be asked whether this is an “adjustment” which will lead to the pub trade stabilising at a lower level, or whether it is the sign of an inexorable long-term decline that in a generation will reduce pubs to a tiny, irrelevant rump. Yes, some pubs are still thriving, but many of those that are still open are noticeably much less busy than they once were.

The pub illustrated, The Beeches in Northfield, Birmingham, is maybe the saddest of the lot, its mock-Jacobean magnificence, almost like a licensed stately home, contrasting poignantly with its current burnt-out dereliction. It wouldn’t surprise me if it had now been demolished.

Denormalisation at work

Well, it would seem that blog readers are not very keen about lunchtime drinking when at work. Out of 75 responses, 79% said it was something they would do either very occasionally or never.

This is a major change in pubgoing habits that has occurred over the past twenty or thirty years. When I started work in the early 80s, it was usual to go to the pub at lunchtime – and drink a couple of pints – at least one day a week, often more.

But now, partly due to changing attitudes towards alcohol, partly due to more restrictive policies from employers, for most workers the lunchtime pint is rare or non-existent. I have a facsimile of a guide to central Manchester pubs produced in 1975, which comments how many of the pubs were busy at lunchtimes, but much quieter in the evenings. Nowadays, assuming the pubs are still there, it’s usually the other way round. Even if people do go to the pub for a leaving do or suchlike, most will stick to soft drinks.

Obviously it can be argued that this is a good thing in an age where idleness and low productivity at work are much less acceptable. Many will say that they like to keep themselves fully on the ball while at work, but can still go out and have a few pints in the evening.

But the point is that the number of occasions during the week when going to the pub is something that people will consider doing has been reduced, to the inevitable detriment of the pub trade. For many, lunchtimes while at work were the main occasion when they had an opportunity to visit a pub, as opposed to making a specific journey for that purpose. Pubgoing becomes a specific interest rather than something woven into the fabric of everyday life.

And that is the process of “denormalisation” in a nutshell – a steady curtailment of what is considered “normal” behaviour, which creeps up on people so stealthily that they don’t notice it happening.

And cheers to the 20% who still manage to do it at least once a week.

Float or sink?

October 1st will see two significant legislative changes affecting the British brewing industry and pub trade. In both cases, it’s difficult to predict exactly what the impact will be. The first is the new beer duty regime, with 50% duty for beers of 2.8% ABV or below, and 125% duty for beers above 7.5%. And the second is the introduction of the two-thirds pint “schooner” measure. Will these measures radically change things, or will they prove a pair of damp squibs? Heineken UK have announced that they will be making a big push on two-thirds glasses. Given that they campaigned for the change, you can see them featuring prominently in BrewDog’s bars, where they may be well-suited to the relatively strong beers on sale. But will they really take off in the general pub trade, or will it be a case of the H. M. Bateman cartoon of “the man who asked for a schooner in the Gungesmearers’ Arms”?

TOTAL POLITICS AWARD 2011

I've never been nominated before, as far as I'm aware, and maybe my blog has been a bit temperamental at times, but if you think this cafe where tea, cigarettes and a good chat can be found, is worth it then please do drop your vote in for this blog in the Total Politics Blog Awards for 2011.



A link can be found on the side bar on the left. The deadline is 12 midnight tomorrow, Friday August 19th. Even if you don't vote for me, then please do vote for someone and show the main stream media and politicians that blogs do have a voice and a following and for them to completely ignore our rantings would be wrong.



Meanwhile I am off to Festival in the rolling Louth Wolds and living a very basic life in a - probably very wet - tent in the middle of a field for the next four days.



No doubt I'll have plenty to say when I get back but I hope nothing drastic happens to smokers while my back is turned and my mind is switched off from all communications.



Fingers crossed that the sun does at least shine a little bit.

REASON AND TOLERANCE IN TOKYO

I'm delighted to feature this guest post by businessman TIM ROBINSON who describes his recent experience as a smoker in Japan where tolerance and fairness for both sides of the smoking debate are catered for through common sense and technology.



************************************************************

I’m not a militant smoker in fact I consider myself to have “liberal” and considerate views in all things. That may sound a little big headed but I’m well-travelled and I honestly believe it increases a person’s tolerance for others and what I'd consider to be their somewhat irrational behaviour.



Since the prohibition style of tobacco control was introduced in the UK I’ve felt more than a little persecuted but I try to see the other side of the problem and I’d happily meet anti-smokers half way. OK, they consider smokers reckless and immoral people (those that are passing laws and driving policy at least).



In my experience few people on the street do not want to reach a compromise where we are all happy. Yes there are some that will never be happy but if we didn’t smoke they’d complain we fart, look funny or aren’t exactly like them. You’ll never win them over on anything, they live to be annoyed.



Now Japan is about as alien a culture as I’ve experienced where a lot of emphasis is placed on at least looking like you are following the rules. I think that if the Japanese officials banned smoking ultimately this would be a smoke free country, but no country really wants to ban smoking it creates too much revenue. That's why many countries strive to strike a balance between pampering to the prohibitionists and keeping the revenue rolling in.



This is where the UK policy makers have screwed up. They'll never please the moaning minnies but they will isolate your revenue stream and eventually lose it from smokers either bullied into quitting or buying cheaper illegal products.



Now in Tokyo all the office buildings I visit have well ventilated smoking rooms which are clean and tidy and the smell of smoke barely escapes. I’m sure the anti-smoking brigade would disagree and claim they are being killed by tertiary smoking but I’ll never win that argument. They work on blind faith and not rational discussion.



Tokyo's streets have smoking areas which are well used. People smoke in the smoking areas, there is no litter, they use the ashtrays provided, and everyone is happy. Hardly anyone flouts the rules and smoke outside of the smoking areas and those that do generally use portable ashtrays and take any mess away with them. Everyone is happy.







The UK policy makers need to come to terms with the fact that we smokers do so through choice. They say I have an addiction but I don’t want to change. I enjoy smoking, it’s legal and it pays a massive chunk of revenue into UK PLC.



Through the work of campaigners, I hope that we can strike middle ground. We need to stop listening to the mentals. They will NEVER be happy even if every one of us quit/died or found jeebus and a love puppies and hugging trees.



We could very easily make smoking as it is in Tokyo where people are prohibited from smoking in many places BUT are given alternatives. The costs of doing this would be trivial and would give businesses a choice over the policies they enact and allow market forces to determine policy. If people really want smoke free pubs there will be more of them as they will be the ones customers want. It’s just basic economics.



One of the most bizarre things that happened to me in Japan a few weeks ago was in the Roppongi - a district of bars in Tokyo. Some friends and I stood in the smokeless and sweet smelling bar. We decided we’d have a smoke with our beers and moved outside and lit up. A bouncer turned up and told us we couldn’t smoke there, where could we smoke we asked? Inside was the answer.



That bar like many places in the city has good ventilation and extraction systems and the smoke was drawn away quickly whereas outside on windless days it could linger. It was like I had fallen through the looking glass! It’s nice to be treated like an adult where I don’t have to whisper where can I smoke like I’m asking where can I molest small animals knowing that the response here will not be a holier than thou you should quit. It’ll be a courteous : “there is a room on the 2nd floor”.



I asked if I could change my hotel room to a smoking room from non-smoking if it wasn’t too much bother. The guy at reception said "certainly Sir", handed me an ashtray and said it is now a smoking room. A non smoker friend is staying in the same hotel next week and wanted to change his booking. The only room they have available is a dedicated smoking room. They tell me they have an industrial type extractors that they will run in the room and it removes all traces of smoke. I may not tell my friend the room is a smoking room and ask him after his stay how the room was. I’d bet he won’t even notice that anyone had smoked in there.



The UK could learn a lot from the Japanese attitude to smoking but sadly I don’t think “we” will. All the time holier than thou prohibitionists are driving policy based on an almost religious belief in at best dubious science where findings are pointed towards an outcome and when it fails to produce the required result is modified until it does.



* If you agree with Tim that choice is important both to the promotion of tolerance and economic common sense, then please sign the E Petitions for choice HERE and HERE

Nobody biting

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read that food is going to be the saviour of the wet-led pub. But it isn’t always quite as simple as that. Not too far from me, there’s a big Victorian pub in a prominent suburban main-road location tied to one of the local family brewers. It used to do a cheap and cheerful lunchtime menu of toasties, bacon barms, ham, egg & chips, pensioners’ specials and the like, which seemed to bring in a reasonable amount of custom.

However, the brewery clearly thought the food trade had more potential, so they gave it a makeover – nothing structural, just new upholstery and chairs and a general spring-clean, put the bar staff in uniforms and introduced a new and more ambitious menu with most main courses in the £7+ bracket. However, all this seems to have done is to drive away the old food trade but not bring in any new, more upmarket customers. I’ve been in at lunchtimes both during the week and at weekends, and have always been able to count the number of diners on the fingers of one hand. Sometimes there have been none at all.

Possibly the fact that the pub, both outside and in, still looks like a classic urban local doesn’t help matters. If the same food offer was transplanted into a cottage-style establishment ten miles further south, it might prosper. But it looks as though, in this pub, in this location, the owning company have made a wrong call on the potential food trade. You wouldn’t blame them too much if they decided to cut their losses and, as many other pubs have done, drop the food entirely and not even bother opening at lunchtimes during the week.

The indifferent stuff

Well, here are the results of the survey question “Name up to three cask beers that you regard as poor or lacklustre examples of the genre.” As you can see, there’s an even more decisive winner in the shape of Greene King IPA, with Wells Bombardier second and Sharps Doom Bar third.

There are quite a few beers that appear in both lists, such as both Bombardier and Doom Bar, Deuchars IPA, Butcombe Bitter, Holts Bitter and Wadworths 6X. I’m disappointed to see Harveys Sussex Best on this list as to my mind it is one of the finest ordinary bitters in the country.

It is noticeable that this list includes many of the most widely-distributed cask beers in Britain. This raises some interesting questions. Are these intrinsically lacklustre beers, brewed to a lowest common denominator for a mass market? Or is it a case of “familiarity breeds contempt”? Or could it be that, the more widely available a beer is, the more likely it is to end up in outlets that can’t look after cask beer properly, thus damaging its reputation?

For example, Wells Bombardier is a beer that I “think” I don’t much care for. However, I have to say on the past three occasions when I’ve drunk it, generally when there wasn’t much else to choose from, I have found it in good condition and a perfectly pleasant pint.

And does it do the overall cause of cask beer any good when “beer enthusiasts” dismiss many of the cask beers the average drinker is likely to encounter as disappointingly bland?

29 votes:
Greene King IPA

Ten votes:
Wells Bombardier

Eight votes:
Sharps Doom Bar

Six votes:
Marstons Pedigree

Five votes:
Deuchars IPA

Four votes:
Ruddles Best Bitter
Wychwood Hobgoblin

Three votes:
Courage Directors
Greene King Abbot Ale
Hydes Bitter
Shepherd Neame Spitfire
Tetley Bitter
Youngs Bitter

Two votes:
Draught Bass
Fullers London Pride
John Smiths Cask
Marstons EPA
Morland Old Speckled Hen
Ringwood Best Bitter
Robinsons Unicorn
Sam Smiths OBB
Theakstons Best Bitter
Thwaites Bitter
Wadworths 6X
Wells Eagle IPA

One vote:
Ansells Bitter
Any golden ale
Anything by Arkells
Anything by Coach House
Anything by Enville
Anything by Greene King
Anything by Marstons
Anything by Hydes
Anything by Salamander
Arkells 3B
Badger Best Bitter
Banks’s Best (not sure if this means Mild or Bitter)
Bath Ales Gem
Black Sheep Bitter
Boddingtons Bitter
Brains SA
BrewDog Paradox
BrewDog Punk IPA
Butcombe Bitter
Caledonian Golden Promise
Courage Best Bitter
Davenports Bitter
Dorset Piddle Cocky Hop
Everards Sunchaser
Fullers Discovery
Harveys Sussex Best Bitter
Holts Bitter
Holts IPA
Jennings Cumberland Ale
Leeds Brewery Best
Lees Mild
Ramsbury Bitter
Sambrooks Wandle
Shepherd Neame Master Brew
Storm Brewing Storm Damage
Woodfordes Wherry

Heavy fuel

Not sure what to make of this one. Do ten readers of this blog really believe that drinking 15 pints of Stella or Abbot a week makes someone a “heavy drinker”? That’s hardly two pints a day. Or did they interpret it as “what is the official government line?” Even that is 50 units a week, which in the terms of the poll would equate to 20 pints.

If this reflects the genuine opinion of blog readers, it’s hardly surprising that the pub trade is on its knees.

JUSTICE OR VENGEANCE?

David Cameron talks tough about what will happen to rioters who have been identified and arrested but he could actually do something useful and end the automatic anonymity afforded to under 18s under Sec 39 of the Children's and Young Person's Act 1933 .



I wrote about my own youth horror story and how the whole tragedy was made worse by Govt policy backing for the out of the control kids involved who used it to their own advantage to evade justice and the consequences of their wrong doing.



They knew that they could, quite literally, get away with murder. Any youngster under 18 never has to face severe consequences for their wrong doing because the law states they must be handled with kid gloves.



I've seen some horrible youth cases in court and just as many outrageously soft approaches by magistrates who have to punish them. It is extremely hard to persuade a bench that the most violent of these young criminals should be named and shamed. Often exposing their wrong doing to the wider community is left far too late ** for any chance of rehabilitation, remorse or community protection.



I accept, up to a point, the argument that press reporting of youths could award them glory and recognition for bad behaviour among their peers, when they don't excel at anything else, but I also know from experience that most youth and adult offenders fear press exposure far more than any sentence that magistrates hand out. Certainly the majority of parents are mortified at such shame brought on their family - even those in the underclass who try to do the best they can. To say ALL underclass parents are crap is like is saying ALL Muslims are terrorists.



One case where I successfully applied for reporting restrictions to be lifted was a boy and his mates who terrorised elderly neighbours in a quiet village and attacked them with baseball bats. The bench allowed one boy to be named but not photographed.



Another that was refused despite much effort from the press, was a girl gang who beat up any kid they came across, robbed them, smashed up property and then assigned each other with the appropriate offence based on the likely outcome given their varying criminal records. Youths go through a gamut of sentencing options before getting locked up and by then they don't appear to care.



At least if violent youths could be named and identified from press reports, the communities they live in would know to avoid them.



NuLabour's youths have been preying on individuals in their communities for a decade so it was always just a question of time before they turned on communities themselves. They need to be reined in and adults need to be allowed to be their moral guide without fear of prosecution if they take reasonable action against youths who threaten them, their families or their property. And just because they are under 18, that should not give them an automatic right to be believed above their adult victims.



The fact that kids have nothing to fear from the law was made clear in yet another interview trying to probe the reason for the recent mob violence :



None of the group was concerned about the unprecedented police efforts to catch those responsible. Because there were so many people looting they believed their chances of not getting caught were "quite good."



One of them must have inadvertently given police a clue :



A 17-year-old said he stopped in Clapham Junction solely to target a store where he had been refused work. He said: "It was Comet - they didn't reply to me emailing my CV, or going up there so this was payback man, payback."



Despite the fact that in my own experience parents were part of the problem and actually as threatening as their horrendous kids, I don't support what can only be described as vengeance from the state in taking council homes from these yobs' families or stripping them of benefits.



We really can't be sure that all of the parents were involved or even knew of their kids involvement in the riots. In a lot of cases, adults have been terrified into over-pampering their kids from fear of being seen as child abusers by taking them to task. Like it or not, sometimes a clip around the ear does it when all else fails - and that does not equate to beating and torturing which should be the real concerns of child abuse allegations.



The teens told Sky News their parents were unaware of their activities. One said he had been told to stay in his bedroom but climbed out of the window to join in the looting.



The very fact that we are not allowed to know who these troublesome youths are also means we cannot tell whether an injustice has been committed or not on those families to be evicted by Govt vengeance.



And one wonders if the middle and upper class parents of rioting youths will also feel state wrath at failing to bring up their kids in accordance with state views.





Photo from here



If we are serious about mending "Broken Britain" then maybe we should be looking at one rule for all no matter what class they come from and ending the protection of those who attack adults and others in their neighbourhoods.



** H/T Orphans of Liberty

SMOKERPHOBIC MILTON MUST RESIGN

You may remember that I saw my MP Karl McCartney last month and spoke to him about smoker discrimination and Govt backed Smokerphobia. He wrote to Anne Milton, who rattled off the usual DoH reply to smoker's concerns, and asked me to get back in touch with him if I needed further help. I referred him to this post which laid out my response.



I've had another letter from him today with another reply from Milton who trots out the same old, same old, DoH's line and over-egged health propaganda. She includes again information that smokers kill their babies who die of SIDS despite pointing out to her a support group's concerns that blaming parents for the loss of their baby is just plain morally wrong.



SIDS is defined as an unexplained death. Linking it to smoking based on statistics because it's a believable guess, without actual biological proof, is like saying that because a flock of storks flew over the Maternity Wing of a hospital they must have left the high number of babies who happened to be born that day.



What is shocking about the information she quotes is that the Govt singles out 40 individual parents for blame because they are the ones at the other end of the "40 SIDS deaths per year" she quotes. And yet she goes further to blame smokers for one in five of ALL SIDS. If this is true, then I believe it is in the public interest to name each and every one of those babies that smokers have killed.



The war on vulnerable smoker parents has intensified with the invented myth of Third Hand Smoke now being bandied about as a cause of infant death. Just look at some of the results from a google search here.



The top link shows a comment from a woman only too ready and willing to believe smokers' clothes kill babies before the science has even been manipulated and fraudulently statisticised. But then she lives in the Aussie Third Reich and is programmed to fear, loathe, shun and avoid smokers based on untrue propaganda.



The result of encouraging hatred against smokers is not more keenly felt than that even tinier minority who lose their babies to SIDS. They lose them no more than non smokers or never smokers but they are an easy target for abuse to ease another person's grief by finding an easy cause to blame for the same great loss.



In my previous post taking Milton's ideological information to task, one parent said :



Firstly as the parent of a SIDS victim I would thank you for standing up for a minority of parents who lose their babies to what is probably one of the most misunderstood causes of infant mortality that occour. I would like to point out that by definition SIDS has not any causation nor by definition can it have due to its official guidelines for usage. SIDS is only ever diagnosed as a cause of death in cases where there is no other defineable reason for death.



Secondly there have been occaisions where the parents of SIDS victims have suffered the implication that they commit infanticide in the comments of some Scottish and North-Eastern newspapers which causes an immense amount of stress to parents who are already overwhelmed with grief, who already are wondering if something they did was to blame and for a small part of the media, a small number of politicians and even charities to add to their burden is beyond the bounds of common decency.





Milton defends encouraging abuse of vulnerable parents and smokers in general because it's laid out in the policy document written by ASH "Healthy Lives, Healthy People : A Tobacco Control Plan for England."



She says the DoH is not in the ideological pocket of ASH because ASH reflects the Govt's policy on smoker hatred so it's views suit the Govt's purpose. Debs and Co don't get special treatment. Milton insists ASH is a "charity" (*snigger*) and mentions the value of Labour's unelected Third Sector. She says Govt persecution of smokers is open to Competition - so anyone but ASH can apply - but obviously not on smoking itself as only the Pharmaceutical industry which competes directly with the Tobacco Industry to supply nicotine, is allowed a say.



I also detailed some cases of discrimination in the workplace to Karl and Milton's reply was to go online and have a look at the Equality Act 2010. I did,. Smokers are not mentioned but they should be given job ads like this below from my local paper over a year ago. I haven't looked at vacancies since after complaining about this ad and getting nowhere. It is not illegal to exclude smokers from applying for jobs.







What offends me about the job ad above is the employer's view that smokers are, by definition, uncaring, untrustworthy, and unreliable. I really don't get that Govt can't see this and really can't do something about ensuring protection for smokers at work against bigoted and prejudicial discrimination.



Milton is smokerphobic as her fears for the public's health are obscenely unfounded, and she is not impartial on the issue. What her Govt is doing with it's health policy, based on commercial and self interst marketing techniques and targeted at eradicating smokers by forcing them to quit through coercion, public bullying and blatent discrimination, is encouraging the immoral and the nasty such as this charmer whose obvious concern is the health of his fellow citizen.



Please increase your intake of snouts as much as possible 80-90 a day should do the trick so you have fatal a heart attack rather than long lasting emphysema or cancer with all those bottles of oxygen and nursing care and using up inhalers every five paces. that way the rest of us won't have to foot such a big treatment bill & before you say it the amount raised in tax from fags does not even come close to covering the cost of treating smoking related complaints so please die quickly , thanks



Anne Milton is supporting hatred of a minority group based on ideological rather than health concerns. She should quit now. Oh my, I feel an E-Petition coming on - if only I technologically could - hint, hint.



I will be writing to Karl again because I really do want to know Milton's plans for us when we have been bullied and abused down to 18.5% of the country. My guess is criminalisation as murderers, thieves, ne'er do wells, rioters, and general scum, but I wonder if she will be courageous enough to admit it?



Meanwhile, I leave you with this excellent piece from the View From Cullingworth on the recent public unrest, why it might have happened and the best way forward for a stable and socially healthy society. And this bloke, like Karl, is a Conservative so one wonders how much support Milton really has within her own party at both upper and grass roots level. I think she would be more at home in NuLabour.



Cllr Cooke says in response to the riots, and for the general good of the country, and I agree:



The reformation is simple – we should neuter government, take away from it the power to fix markets in the interests of those with the best lobbyists and biggest bribes. It is the overweening state that created the sinful world ... not some wider moral malaise.



The sooner we take away the power of Govt to fix the nicotine market, and bolster self interest Third Sectors, as the first step back to normality, the sooner fairness, impartiality, and truth will return as our moral guide and we can all get back to getting on with each other without Govt interference.