Labour and the decline of the British pub
Tuesday, June 18, 2024 at 15:17 Only Labour will end the decline of British pubs, declared a Labour Party tweet today.
I know all political parties are guilty of hypocrisy but this takes the biscuit.
I’m sure that readers don’t need to be reminded that it was the last Labour government that introduced the workplace smoking ban in England.
Likewise, it was devolved Labour administrations that introduced the policy in Scotland and Wales.
But you may have forgotten the facts concerning the impact the ban had on pubs across Britain.
Ten years after the introduction of the smoking ban in England, Forest commissioned and published a report by Rob Lyons entitled, ‘Road To Ruin? The impact of the smoking ban on pubs and personal choice’.
On June 26, 2017, we issued a press release that began:
The smoking ban decimated England’s pubs and hurt local communities, according to a report published today.
New figures obtained by the smokers’ group Forest show there are 11,383 fewer pubs in England compared to 2006, a decline of 20.7 per cent since the smoking ban was introduced on 1st July 2007.
London alone has 2,034 fewer pubs than in 2006, North West England has lost 1,788, Yorkshire is down by 1,589 and the South East has a net loss of 1,013.
But the biggest decline in pub numbers has been in the Midlands where there are 2,560 fewer pubs than before the smoking ban, a drop of 23.7 per cent.
While the fall in the number of pubs is part of a long-term trend and is not solely down to the smoking ban, the report found there was a clear acceleration in pub closures after the ban was enforced, with pubs in poorer urban areas suffering most.
The figures, which were obtained from research specialists CGA Strategy, confirmed what we had known for a long time, and it wasn’t just pubs in England that suffered as a result of the ban.
In September 2010 research carried out by CR Consulting on behalf of Forest’s Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign found that the smoking ban was the main cause of pub closures throughout the UK in the aftermath of the ban:
Using information from a respected industry database, researchers found that the number of pub losses demonstrate a very close statistical relationship between the introduction of smoking bans and the acceleration of the decline of the British pub.
This relationship, says the report, is considerably stronger than those that could be attributed to other factors such as the recession, alcohol duty or supermarket competition.
According to the report:
Researchers found a striking similarity in the rate of closures in Scotland, England and Wales following the introduction of smoking bans in each country.
While there is significant variation in the trajectories of pub closures in each country before the ban, there is an almost total correlation between the three countries after the ban.
This indicates that they are affected by a strong common factor - the smoking ban. The correlation is in fact so close that the trend line for the three countries is identical.
Commenting on the research, Oliver Griffiths, director of CR Consulting, said:
“The decline of the British pub had started before the smoking ban but at a relatively low level. The smoking ban had a sudden and marked impact, accelerating the rate of decline.
“While it is not the only factor, the smoking ban is demonstrably the most significant cause of pub closures in recent years.”
To be clear, workplace smoking bans in Scotland, Wales and England were introduced by Labour governments.
Despite this the UK Labour Party would have us believe that ‘Only Labour will end the decline of British pubs’.
I’m not suggesting that any other party would do a better job but, seriously, you couldn’t make it up.
See: Cigarette ban killing off British pubs: 11,000 lost in 10 years (Daily Star), and Devastating impact of the smoking ban on pubs laid bare (Taking Liberties)
Reader Comments (2)
Wait until anti smoker extremist Wes Streeting bans smoking outside too when he brings back the Tory law to criminalise the next generation of smoker.
Labour's metropolitans do not want the distasteful working and lower classes in any public areas in their vision of Britain so gentrification on steroids will no doubt dictate all Labour government policy going forwards.
If only the Tories under Sunak had not tried to be like Labour. Look how popular the generational criminalisation of smokers turned out to be. Sunak expected to be rewarded with masses of support. Instead it killed the Tory party dead. People are voting against such extremist bans at the ballot box. No reasonable minded person wants the extremists in Labour but sadly our parties do not give us much choice so we are left with voting for one to punish another and not because we want more of the same in different party colours.
Reform seems to be the only alternative for absolute change but people are wary. Certainly Labour claiming to be the party of the pub or the working classes shows how little self awareness there is among it's leaders and members.
Democracy has never been in such danger before. We now live in the time of the One Party State where free choice is illegal.
What you say is undoubtedly true. However, the problem is that the Tories, particularly under Rishi Sunak, are even more anti-freedom than Labour was under Tony Blair, and not just on smoking.
In fact, the majority of the political class seems to have headed that way, to one degree or another. Reform UK is different on this, but that one single benefit is not worth their hard right policies in other areas, not to mention their deeply questionable attitudes on many subjects, to put it mildly.
Social control by the nanny state is an ever-worsening disease in the 21st century, but I struggle to see how we can treat it and recover from it. Sadly, I don't think we will. All we can do is continue to resist it as best we can.
While there are definitely some good people in the current Labour Party, Wes Streeting frankly scares the hell out of me, but then so does Rishi Sunak, and for the same reasons.