Not cost – at a mere £3.3m (less than Vince Cable spends on his Better Regulation initiative to burn supposed red tape),

You could costlessly put £3.3m back into the pubs (and church halls and schools) by lifting the absurd Labour legislation requiring music licences when more than three people sing in them.

What would it cost for us to buy out this government?

Add up the cost of all the lucrative directorships they might get on the boards of companies who they might sell our stuff off cheap to.

Then club together to pay them a bit over the odds.

Voila. We don't have to retreat to the nineteenth century. Maybe just the Thirties.

We are so fucked

I think it's time we renamed the Guardian... the Daily Cut.

'Cos that's mostly what they are having to report these days.

Maybe the Daily Cut & Gaffe

heverale,

I think it's time we renamed the Guardian... the Daily Cut.

A typo?

Why is the Guardian shocked that just weeks after saying pubs are at the heart of the community and that co-operation is a massive part of the "Big Society," Cameron cuts this tiny amount of money that would go a long way?

I'll give you a masive clue....

The "Big Society" is a great idea. But that is all it is. Cameron is using it to sound progressive while doing regressive things.

Just like he is using the Lib Dems to sound liberal when most of the things planned aren't.

Just like he is talking up the deficit so it sounds like their cuts are being done in all our best interests when they are just ideological.

Just like they have resurrected the "benefits bogeyman," to sound tough on unemployment when it is just code for blame the poor

Just like they talk about local democracy so they sound community based when they are removing the levers of local power.

Just like they talk about NHS improvement so they sound like they believe in it but are going to privitise it.

Just like they talk about constitutional change so they sound like they want to be "fair" when all they want to do is redraw boundaries to remove marginal seats and create safe Tory ones.

The Tories (like Ashcroft) know "Big Society" is utter rubbish. Labour know it is utter rubbish. It is utter rubbish. The only people that haven't cotton on yet are.... the so called "sharp minds" of journalists who keep printing what the Tories and Libs are saying rather than what they are doing

Has Rusebridger resigned yet for the shabby part the Guardian played and keeps playing in this right-wing carve up? What happened to the left wing paper my parents used to buy before "it went all Tory"?

testy
11 Aug 2010, 1:11AM

heverale,

I think it's time we renamed the Guardian... the Daily Cut.

A typo?

Heaven forfend. How could you say such a thing?

Cut, not Cult.

:)

I once had a community pub to go to; the Scarborough Hotel on the beautiful Illawarra coast of NSW. Then some mob of bastards bought it up and transformed it into a tourist trap.

Now, what was once a great old horseshoe bar, crowded with locals, is now a cross between a bistro and a hairdressing salon complete with gambling facilities. How fucked is that?

1nn1t makes a valid point - New Labour made it pretty plain they hated pubs - and cultural activity in them - remember the Culture Secretary saying the idea of live folk music in a pub was his "idea of hell" ?

There is so little live music, of any sort in, pubs these days - pubs are more likely to screen high-ratings shows like the X Factor... which as we well know, is more likely to be watched at home in the company of cheap supermarket booze, brain firmly in neutral.

Lest we forget, Labour helped the move to kill off the pub in bringing in this law, as well as their cycnical ongoing support of rapacious pub-cos, which charged struggling landlords well over the odds - let alone absolute inflexibility over the smoking ban.

This is one of the many thousands of reasons I, like most of the country wanted rid of them. Much as I despise the Con-Dems, it's Labour who brought this country to where it is - and this community pub fund was a very, very late afterthought, a desperate bit of electioneering after thirteen years of kicking pubs and pub culture into touch - prefering they become expensive wine bars, restaurants (gastro-pubs) and 'boutique' hotels for expensive weekend breaks. Or just closed.

Can I have guacamole with that ?

I suspect that the judgement of millions of people is impaired and their lives subtly blighted by their unacknowledged psychological dependency on alcohol. The suggestion that we facilitate further leeching away of human happiness by encouraging what in other contexts would be called drug dens in the middle of our communities is simply indicative of how insidious drugs of all kinds are. If people need alcohol to "take the edge off" or "relax" or "unwind" or "be sociable" then what they're really saying is that they're already to some degree emotionally and psychologically less healthy than they could be; healthy, happy people don't need to use drugs to do those things. Alcohol masks problems by blocking emotional signals from our organism which are there precisely because they've evolved to be our compass, to tell us when we're unhappy. By masking our unhappiness and anxiety with fake emotions, alcohol diminishes the likelihood that we'll take action in the real world to change our material circumstances, which are what's making us unhappy and anxious.

Mark said religion was the opiate of the masses, and he was wrong.

mikeeverest
If you don't mind me saying, some tee-totallers really do seem pretty miserable though.

Pint of Doom Bar (it's a beer, OK!) in the pub down the road - £2.50

500 ml of Doom Bar in Morrison's - £1.65.

That's why pubs are closing.

BristolBoy
We're doomed...

Lipizanner,

Couldn't agree more. The problem is we don't understand that feelings aren't just things that happen to us, to be borne or drunk or drugged or workaholicked away; they are the symbolic language of our inner life, our compass to happiness. If we're anxious, unhappy or afraid we need to understand that those feelings are the organism who we are telling our conscious ego that something needs to change. Whether that something is our material circumstances or our way of experiencing those circumstances, we need to change something about who we are being and unless we take action to do that we'll continue to be unhappy and the signals will intensify.

And if we DO take committed action, then life is filled with a meaning and joy that is always accessible in a heartbeat.

Thank the Gods our local community pub got knocked down and replaced by Aldi.
I only made the mistake of going into the foul smelling dump once, and that wasn't even to score drugs. It was the place people went shortly before being shot dead or beaten to a pulp. Very "vibrant".

MIkeeverest, you sound like you need a pint mate.

mikeeverest
That goes some way in clarifying your point; I agree in some ways. Where I don't agree with you is your asignation of 'community' pubs as central to this "malaise". Alcohol consumption is far too high taken strictly on a public health measurement, but the most problematic demograph is the young people - 16-30 - who congregate in godawful high street factory pubs that New Labour has done everything to allow to flourish.

Similarly, bristolboy, New Labour allowed supermarkets to undercut pubs systematically, and also allowed pub-cos to flourish and binding their landlords into buying beer at significantly above cost. Vicious circle.

In Australia, supermarkets aren't allowed to sell alcohol - bonza idea if you ask me.

dirkbruere

If you think that is typical of the community pubs being discussed here, you must live in a very dark and dismal part of the UK indeed.

Times have changed and the pub is simply out of date for a significant proportion of the younger generation. They spend so much on their homes and on gadgets for them, they'd rather stay in and enjoy them than drink overpriced crap in the pub.

but in many villages the public house is one of the few areas where a society can meet, talk, be bound together.

If these peoples lives are so devoid of any personal happiness that they have to socialise with their neighbours over alchohol then maybe the inbred community shouldn't be allowed to survive.

I live in the countryside and a lot of pubs around me are on their last legs. The smoking ban and the cost of alcohol rising in a pub as opposed to tesco has hit them hard.

One closed last month, another is struggling but has branched out to have film nights for the kids of the village, takeaway pub food, selling eggs and milk, etc. The right path to take, in my opinion, and good luck to them.

We also have a community pub in another village close to me. Open 4 nights a week, with a membership fee. It could never survive as a commercial pub due to the size of the village and rising costs but works really well, run by volunteers, as a "club" and fills a need for a communal place in a village that is finding it hard keeping a community spirit

The worst thing about the pubs in the area is that we have a great independent organic beer brewery on our doorstep but because the pubs are tied to large breweries they can't sell an award winning beer made by the people who use the pubs!

My personal opinion is that a pub is a better place to learn responsible drinking than tesco's car park and should be given a hand by the government to reflect this

Can we have community owned Ganja plantations?

@nottydave

We do! Don't let out the secret

I must say, many 'anti-pub' comments on this thread (and others in the past) seem to come from people who know very little about them... is this normal on CiF ?

I suspect that the judgement of millions of people is impaired and their lives subtly blighted by their unacknowledged psychological dependency on alcohol. The suggestion that we facilitate further leeching away of human happiness by encouraging what in other contexts would be called drug dens in the middle of our communities is simply indicative of how insidious drugs of all kinds are...

Jesus H... What do you do for fun? Where do you suggest people gather in a village, for example?

has branched out to have film nights for the kids of the village, takeaway pub food, selling eggs and milk, etc.

The Irish model then.

...in many villages the public house is one of the few areas where a society can meet, talk, be bound together. '

This is only true if people go there. If they don't go then the pub closes. The pubs are closing because not enough people want to go to them. Are you seriously suggesting that public money should be squandered supporting unviable businesses when we are in deep debt?

In praise of ... community pubs

Presumably the Guardian will now be campaigning to permit smoking in pubs once more and lower taxes on alcohol (two big reasons why pubs are struggling).

Thought not.

Are you seriously suggesting that public money should be squandered supporting unviable businesses when we are in deep debt?

Banks excluded then.

I live in a one-pub village where the pub is threatened. I am a regular user of the pub and play in its "house band"; it is very much part of the community.

It is quite possible the day will come where the community is faced with the choice of buying it or losing it, and I will be digging into my pocket.

But why is the taxpayer at large responsible in any way if we wish to do so?

£3.3 million won't buy you more than a handful of pubs outright anyway - it's not going to be much of a defence against 52 closing a week. It works out at £1,220 per closed pub per year, or a good night's takings.

If you want to do something to help save pubs, unscramble Labour's ludicrous Licensing Act which threatens to imprison both me and the landlord if I play an acoustic guitar, but has no sanctions at all preventing him from installing a 10 kilowatt club sound system.

1nn1it

the absurd Labour legislation requiring music licences when more than three people sing in them.

Pre-2006 there was a "two in a bar" rule - also a bit daft - which at least allowed soloists and duets to perform whether amplified or not.

Now any performance by anyone is illegal. I commit an offence if I sing Happy Birthday to somebody at the bar.

Neither the old law nor the present law discriminates in any way between unamplified folk music or a full-on death metal band. It's a dog's dinner, but it's killing live music at the grassroots level and eventually that's going to rip the heart out of a large part of our culture.

mafs
It's called interventionism. People have been doing it since, well yonks ago.

@Lipizanner
If you think that is typical of the community pubs being discussed here, you must live in a very dark and dismal part of the UK indeed.

A housing estate in a Midlands town.
No doubt it's different in Twee Village in the Cotswolds

Dirkbruere also very different to my local - which seems to be doing well despite the smoking ban which came in effect a year earlier than England.

Clientele a mix of students and locals with a range of decent real ales every night. OK, at £2.60 or more a pint, but you pay for the atmosphere and what the Irish call the craic.

If you want to sit at home and get blasted, fine, Tescos is cheaper. But it's not so much fun.

I suggest perhaps you get out more before voicing an opinion?

Absolutely. Britain has little left to stand on, the Pubs are representative of Britain. This is what tourists flock to, the quaint, old pubs, it's revenue. Why then, do away with an essential part of Brtiain? If it was not for the family owned pubs in our community we would not have youth leagues, cricket leagues, a place for the children to play in the garden, Christmas, Easter and holiday events. Fund raisers for everything under the sun.

The old style pubs, not the new fabricated chain pubs that could give a crap about the community but the old, neighborhood, community pubs, they are well worth preserving. It's the only thing we have left.

""Labour's ludicrous Licensing Act which threatens to imprison both me and the landlord if I play an acoustic guitar, but has no sanctions at all preventing him from installing a 10 kilowatt club sound system.""

Does no such thing actually. The Act permits only background music to be played without a licence. That's not going to cover a 10KW sound system at all - he could install it but better not turn up the volume. Even if the landlord wants to argue that pub-shaking sound is 'background music', he can be prosecuted for noise nuisance.

On the other hand, the pub could ask for live music, recorded musc, dancing, films etc to be added to its existing premices licence for selling alcohol. It could then have you playing in the bar every night, plus have discos and films at weekends.
Or the pub could apply for weekend permission, which is easy and cheap to get.

Previously, you had to apply for a justices' licence from the magistrates' court to sell alcohol, a separate public entertainment licence (renewable annually) to have music, both with a separate cost. Now you do the whole thing together for a one-off cost and an low annual fee.

Village halls and community buildings pay very low fees. Their main problem is the need for someone to take responsibility for alcohol sales, which is a pain. They always needed to have a public entertainment licence for the hall and hirers had to get justices' licences anyway, which was a nightmare for one-off events.

The real problem with the Licensing Act is it is toothless. It takes far too long to deal with premises causing serious problems.

In many places, the pub is the only community building - small villages have no school; cold or closed church; no hall; no shop. Not buying the pub means the only possible meeting place turns into a posh house and 'community' finds it very hard to survive. How are 300 souls supposed to find £300,000 for their pub?

A fund to help small villages or estates keep their 'local' brings far more benefits than the savings will generate.

It takes far too long to deal with premises causing serious problems.

Untrue. Bangor magistrates managed to close down a pub selling cocaine inside days.

OK, that was a second offence in a month, but even so I suspect the problem is more a matter of will.

Oh great. I stopped going to pubs since the smoking ban and now the Government wants tax money off me to keep them going as creches serving snacks.

The experience of my pub has been that since the smokers started going outside for a few minutes to avoid giving everyone else cancer, trade increased.

Possibly not a universal experience, but the smokers don't seem to mind smoking outside in exchange for a better atmosphere inside.

But not all smokers perhaps are that unselfish.

francoisVoltearouet

Banks excluded then

Banks included.
@lipizanner

It's called interventionism. People have been doing it since, well yonks ago.

And spending money you don't have is called imprudence. Giving it a name doesn't make it right.
Look I like pubs, especially country pubs, but it's not for the public purse to support them.

Bangorstu, I'm pleased the smoking ban works for your pub, but generally it doesn't and smokers who no longer visit pubs should not be expected to subsidise them. Wasn't the non smoking family friendly atmosphere guaranteed to bring non smokers and children into pubs and make them morer successful? At least, that's what ASH UK said, and the Government and the publicans believed them. I suggest that smokers are not happy standing outside or they would do it at home, rather than sit on sofas in their living rooms. As your comment indicates, the smoking ban has revealed a fundamental difference in the personalities of smokers and certain section of non smokers. That is why many of us would now prefer not just smoking rooms but separate smoking pubs, where we can give ourselves and each other and the staff, who are their of their own free will, cancer, without annoying you and your ilk. The only problem is that, within weeks, your pub would be shut. You would see at first hand the adult male's preference for spending his non sporting activity leisure time seated in the warm rather than standing in the cold.

ah, the community pub.
the village green, endless summers, the sound of leather on willow, bobbies on bicycles, scrumping apples, the vicar calling for tea....

I wouldn't mind a community time-share in The Seychelles. On the taxpayer, natch.

"Look I like pubs, especially country pubs, but it's not for the public purse to support them."

The amount of tax we pay in alchol duty per pint undermines this position a little...

@bangorstu
I suggest perhaps you get out more before voicing an opinion?

What? That my "community pub" was an utter dump? You think it wasn't? That the drug dealing, violence and "last stop before being shot" is an exageration? Or that it closed when some of the "regulars" threatened to firebomb it for interfering with their "business"? Oh... and I do not live in an especially bad part of town, just mediocre.
Since the smoking ban I do go to pubs far more often, and take the family with me. Just not to places where people get knifed. Maybe you know a pub like that in Bangor? Or is it all too genteeeel in Wales?

dirk

"A housing estate in a Midlands town"

Bingo - exactly the same mate !

My local is f@cking awesome... largely down to a good landlord kicking out the scummers and keeping them out.

I think the article's about village pubs - where they are by default of population size - much more central & essential to the 'community'.

Jon56 - I think you exaggerate simply because in the case of my local there are around six regaular smokers....

Smoking is (literally) a dying habit. But if you'd rather drink alone and smoke than enjoy conversation, that is up to you.

Dirk - I don't doubt your pub was a dump, but applying that broad-brush to all was a bit harsh. As was suggesting decent pubs only occur in twee villages.

And we did have a violent pub in Bangor. The authorities closed it.

JohnnyVodka,

A king heard someone say that Buddha was the happiest man in the World so he sought him out. He said:

"I'm happier than you! I have dancers and courtesans, musicians and artists, all available every day to keep me amused!

Buddha said "Great! Good for you! Do you want to sit here with me on this bench for an hour and we can sit in silence on this beautiful day and be perfectly happy together!"

The King replied "Of course! My pleasure!"

At the end of the hour the King stood up to leave. Buddha said "Wait! That was so much fun! Please, stay with me and sit in peace and quiet for the rest of the day!" The King hesitated, but replied "Yes, why not, of course."

As the sun was going down the King stood up to go. Buddha smiled and said "That was so much fun!" Will you come back tomorrow and sit in perfect peace and contentment and joy with me again, perhaps for the whole week!"

The King smiled and said: "You are the happiest man in the World"

I don't do anything Johnny; joy is always everywhere. And I'm not even Buddha.

That's kinda my point.

Boot the smoking ban out of pubs and you will save them.

It really is that easy.