NOTHING saddens me more than the sight of a boarded-up pub. This unique British social institution is struggling, and it certainly won’t get support from the state – the very opposite, in fact. The puritanical powers-that-be seem hell-bent on removing the public house from our social landscape.
Last week the government used its huge majority in the House of Commons to pass the so-called ‘banter ban’. Clause 18 of the Employment Rights Bill would amend the Equality Act to force employers to ‘take all reasonable steps’ to protect their staff from ‘harassment’ by ‘third parties’.
This provision is not specifically about pubs, but it’s obvious where it is likely to be applied in employment cases. Two regulars on bar-stools are chatting about something on the news. They express their opinions on the latest woke or green absurdity, or on Channel crossings by illegal immigrants. The bar person, maybe a feminist, a gay or a leftie, feels offended, and would be able to sue the landlord for failing to fulfil his Clause 18 obligations.
Knowing that the clientele includes some opinionated commentators on world events, the licensee may decide to warn customers that offensive talk will not be tolerated. Then he must follow through and ban one or two regulars. In disgust, fellow drinkers boycott the pub. And then the writing is on the wall.
Of the many reasons for the plight of the pub, here are some of the most prominent: –
- Demise of male working-class jobs. Where I grew up near Greenock, pubs surrounded the shipyards: Para Handy, Oban, Lynedoch, Crescent, Carnock. All but the last have gone.
- Extortionate tax: excise duty, business rates, increased National Insurance payments and outlawing of zero-hours contracts. In the past, beer was cheaper in the pub than at the off-licence, but the tax regime reversed this, resulting in supermarkets selling bulk packs at half the price of a pint at the bar.
- Loss of community belonging and social cohesion, a process that began with television and has been furthered by the internet. Society is being deliberately atomised, with most socialising online rather than meeting in person, to weaken resistance to state control.
- Demoralisation and cultural malaise. Traditions and social norms have been so devalued that people feel no responsibility to maintain their local hostelry. They may demean it as an ‘old man’s pub’ and have no regret when it closes and is replaced by a block of flats.
- Demographic replacement. Not a ‘far-right’ conspiracy theory but the blatant reality in swaths of our towns and cities, where a growing population is from foreign cultures that do not use pubs. Have you observed that the more crowded and culturally diverse our cities, the fewer the social amenities? In many areas the only place to drink draught beer is the Wetherspoons on the high street: all local pubs have disappeared in a suburban desert.
Other factors include the smoking ban since 2007, and severe penalties for drink-driving, both of which may be publicly supported but undoubtedly they have contributed to loss of custom. Country pubs are losing trade because of the social frowning on a driver having any alcohol at all.
According to the Campaign for Real Ale, 37 pubs close every week in Britain. There is hope, however, in name and spirit. I lived in the pleasant London suburb of Carshalton for many years, where all the pubs have stood the test of time (except one, closed because of structural faults). My nearest was The Hope, which about twenty years ago was destined to become an Asian restaurant. It was saved and a community buy-out from Punch Taverns led to it becoming a mecca for real ale, and a regular winner of the CAMRA pub of the year in the whole of Greater London.
Four years ago I moved to Bexhill-on-Sea. This East Sussex town did not initially impress me because it seemed to lack pubs. Where had they gone? According to CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide, the best place in the town was the RAF Club, which indeed serves a tasty variety of ales from Sussex and Kent breweries.
A friend, Rob Hiscocks, who has lived in Bexhill for 40 years, started me on a journey of discovery. There was a reason for the limited number of pubs, or building that looked like former pubs. The seventh Earl de la Warr, who created this seaside resort in the late nineteenth century, decreed that licensing would be allowed only in hotels. Today, however, a range of new drinking venues has emerged, and Bexhill is bucking the trend by having more outlets for cask ale than ever.
Rob and I have produced a history of the pubs of Bexhill, which were mostly north of the railway line rather than in the town centre or seafront. Many have faded in the mists of time, but we have brought them back to life in our book, the History Of Bexhill Pubs, as they have played an important part of our social history.
Let us be better custodians than those of recent generations who have neglected their culture. And let us speak easy in the convivial atmosphere of the pub. Banter ban? Not in my local.
