http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=536270&in_page_id=1770
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Then Camra, the Campaign for Real Ale, was founded to fight for traditional beer and pubs.
It found a surprising ally. Margaret Thatcher, who hated monopolies and brewers (despite the fact that they were significant donors to the Tory Party), rallied to the cause.
Laws were passed that no brewer could own more than 2,000 pubs. Furthermore, they would have to give their landlords the option of selling at least one “guest beer” produced by a rival.
The idea could not have been simpler: by smashing the big brewers’ monopoly, there would be a flowering of smaller brewers, varied pubs and more choice for drinkers. But it didn’t work out like that.
Roger Protz of Camra looks slightly uncomfortable when I ask him what went wrong. “Basically, I think we were tremendously naive,” he says.
What happened was that the brewers created stand-alone pub companies – known as PubCos – to which they sold all their pubs.
Because they didn’t brew beer themselves, these new companies were exempt from the legislation.
“There were a lot of sweetheart deals,” explains Protz. “The brewers would say to some of their management team, ‘Here’s a golden handshake, go off, buy a tranche of pubs and in return only take our beers.’ That was what happened.
“We were offered this great shangri-la of choice but now choice is just as restricted under the pub companies as it was under the brewers.”
The statistics bear him out. In 1989, the three biggest brewers owned around 20,000 pubs, about a third of the UK’s total. Today, the three biggest PubCos own – wait for it – around 20,000 pubs.
In 1989, the six biggest brewers produced 75 per cent of all the beer drunk in Britain’s pubs. Today, they produce 84per cent.
What have changed are the pubs themselves.
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Ahh, the gooferment at work.
It’s hard to imagine bigger stupidity.
Where there is a will, there’s a way.
And, what exactly was the gooferment seeking to do? Didn’t work. So, I guess, they’ll pass yet another law!
Argh!
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Reinke Faces Life 