From today's FT, not online:
Twats. If they really wanted to do something for pubs, they could just lift the smoking ban. Or go halfway house and auction off smoking licences, which would rescue a lot of pubs and be a nice little earner for local councils.
Monday, 23 February 2009
Dave don't got no clue (9)
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10 comments:
I considered voting Conservative in the next election, but then I realised that if they won, it'd still mean banging my head against the wall in frustration, just slightly less often, and hopefully not hard enough to give me concussion.
For my own mental health, I refuse to vote for anyone other than UKIP or LPUK. At least then I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that I'm not partly responsible for electing the (almost) total shower that we're going to end up with.
I personally don't think there will be a particularly strong relationship between what the Conservatives say (or fail to say) now and what they do in government. Which will mean things under Cameron could be a lot worse, or better, than I might hope. My guess is that they will be a fair bit better overall. But any small relief from the current insanity will be a huge relative benefit. Indeed, as Mark says, take one look at http://www.realhelpnow.gov.uk/ and abandon all hope.
See this no holds barred article about the pub trade and the smoking ban:
http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?sectioncode=16&storycode=62868&c=3
"In my opinion the trade, as we know it, has no future without an amendment to the smoking ban."
Agree the smoking ban has to go,(or you could have non-smoking gasto bars with fifties retro decor and smoker pubs with sticky carpets etc on an optional basis).
But there is an argument for getting the price of booze as low as possible,so that it puts the pushers/ publicans/brewers out of business.They'd have to diversify into food because the mark-up on drink would be too small to make a living .
This brilliant idea was best articulated by Henry George,no less,but you never hear Georgists mention it.
DBC REED: "But there is an argument for getting the price of booze as low as possible, .."
God! DBC REED articulating a market solution.
Charlie B,
I see no evidence, not a whiff that the Conservatives have a secret plan to get on with turning us back to small government Conservatives.
My evidence against is how poorly they challenged the government over bank regulation, the house price boom and collapse of the banks. Where were Dave or George's speeches over this, pointing out the problems with regulation, what did they do when the collapse happened? I'll tell you, they had no warnings they could refer to, and could do nothing but go along with the government's plans because they were caught on the hop. An opposition that was more concerned with the serious matter of government rather than promoting slow food or banning sweets at tills might have been doing the reading and scored very big out of the crisis. That they are in the lead is a result of Labour's utter incompetence and time in office. If William Hague were leader, they'd be miles ahead by now.
Osborne is an utter failure in opposition. When the press turns to a Liberal Democrat as the best opposition politician on the economy, you are really in the shit. His life/work experience is basically as a wonk.
I forsee the Conservatives winning the next General Election, but they'll be failures. A few bits of tweaking around the edges, but don't expect the public sector to be shrunk in a hurry or for fake charities donations to go down much. Unlike the failure of the late 70s, we don't have people who are prepared for what they have to do.
DBC, out of interest, how do you get the price of booze down? For sure, you could cut duties, but most of the benefit of this would flow back to breweries via higher margins (demand being price inelastic)?
TA, agreed, only I can't stand William Hague either.
As far as I remember George would lower prices by cut-throat competition which he would engender by getting rid of licensing completely, which he thought a hopelessly corrupt system.
( In New York under Tammany ,it must have been.The bar owners got out the Democrat vote)
I seem to remember him saying that you should be able to get a drink at any counter,hot-dog stand or place serving the public,(like you can get beer at McD's in France nowadays).
@Anonymous said
I am not opposed to competition or the market on principle.But left to itself the High street ends up with one supermarket selling food (Tesco's?), one chain chemist,one bookseller/ stationery shop,one big electrical supplier etc,the gaps being filled with a rabble of banks and estate agents ( now empty)And none of them in competition with each other."Notes on a small island " ends up in Scotland with him saying he is saying the same collection of shps for the umpteenth time.
Competition is surely not a natural state and has to be forced on business which is all too willing to divide up the market amongst themselves,stake out their sales territory ,and not compete.
DBC, AFAIAA, you could always buy beer in continental McD's, or in most countries at least. But more pubs sounds good to me!
But I actually quite like cloned High Streets, it saves you a lot of time when you are somewhere new. As we are seeing, even the big chains are not immune from competition.
I made the point about McD's nowadays to distinguish between that and George's Nirvana where you could buy beer off a newspaper seller on the corner. (He did n't actually use this example but that is what he meant).
If you prefer clone towns you have pretty much given up on the idea of competition.
None of the real biggies has gone under. Woolworth's was always dodgy to start with.There were rumours that it was using its property portfolio to raise loans which they were then gambling on the markets.
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