Pubs don’t deserve special measures | Letters

Letters: Singling out pubs for government help when other high street businesses are also suffering is wrong, writes Michael Newman. Plus letters from John Whitney and Pamela Ellis

Simon Jenkins leaves one or two unanswered questions in his plea for state help with saving pubs (Here is a political lesson progressives need to learn, and fast: British pubs are crucial, 5 February).

Why pubs and not wool shops? Or stationery shops or greasy spoon cafes? Should teetotallers be expected to donate towards keeping open the doors of places they’re unlikely to visit? And what about the jackpot question? Why are so many people eschewing pubs? And are they really the haven of heavenly camaraderie he depicts? Probably in the well‑heeled villages of posh Oxfordshire, but in the grim anonymous edifices of downtown Grimsville it’s a different story.

Yes, governments have been bleeding small retailers on the high street dry for decades. But to single out the pub and weave a web of bonhomie and comfort around it is a fairytale. They are businesses and need to accept that if they want to keep trading, they need to work out how best they can do it. Not expect special treatment. Public money for the boozer? Who’d drink to that?
Michael Newman
Shefford, Bedfordshire

• Perhaps Simon Jenkins should get out more. His nostalgic view of the pub as the social centre of a community that deserves government support plays to the Reform UK playbook. Has he not heard of community centres, for example?

Very few pubs today are truly independent. Subsidising pubs means subsidising the major breweries. They are the root cause why pubs are an endangered species. Whether through direct ownership or managed leases, breweries have been squeezing landlords dry for years.
John Whitley
Milford on Sea, Hampshire

• Simon Jenkins suggests that “The church pub should become the architecture of a united community”. In the middle ages the custom of church ales served just this purpose, bringing the community together to celebrate and fundraise, with food, dancing and home-brewed ales. This was brought to an end by the Reformation, but perhaps an enterprising cleric in a community bereft of its pub could revive the custom.
Pamela Ellis
York

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