The Morning Advertiser has announced the finalists for this year’s Great British Pub Awards.
I always take an interest because I was on the judging panel for three years (2011-2013) and in 2013 I even presented one of the awards at the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane.
I was a late stand-in after the junior government minister who had agreed to present the award for Best Outdoor Smoking Area mysteriously pulled out.
His office didn’t give a reason but it must have had something to do with the category - which was sponsored by JTI and the Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign - because they asked if he could present one of the other awards instead.
Er, no.
This year there are 15 categories including Best Beer Pub, Best Country Pub, Best Pub for Entertainment, and Best Pub for Food.
There’s also a Best Pub for Dogs award but not a Best Pub for Smokers, unless you count Best Pub Garden which is not quite the same because these days many beer gardens have introduced restrictions on smoking, and smokers.
Truth is, even when we sponsored the Best Outdoor Smoking Area it was noticeable that some landlords were unhappy to the point of being abusive if they were nominated in case they became known as a smokers’ pub.
That, and the cost of sponsorship, was one reason the category was quietly dropped, but the Save Our Pubs & Pubs campaign was also drawing to a close as our attention turned to plain packaging.
Also, we didn’t have the resources to campaign on two fronts at the same time and without the support of the pub industry - which was always lukewarm about fighting the smoking ban - there was little or no prospect of even amending the legislation.
Nor did we get even a hint of encouragement from the Conservative-led Coalition government, which is why I was trifle bemused to read this report last week:
Tories pledge focus on pubs and clubs in 'first 100 days' (BBC News)
Let’s be clear. The Tories had the opportunity, in 2010, to focus on pubs and clubs by amending the smoking ban that had been introduced by the previous Labour government.
Instead, and despite a brave attempt by David Nuttall MP, the Conservative-led Coalition - aided and abetted by a substantial number of Tory MPs - rejected Nuttall’s fair and reasonable private bill that would have put some element of choice back into the hands of Britain’s hard-pressed publicans.
Conservative-wise, the rot therefore started with David Cameron (whose government then introduced plain packaging), continued under Theresa May (who set 2030 as the target for England to be ‘smoke free’), and reached its natural conclusion with Rishi Sunak pledging to introduce a generational ban on the sale of tobacco.
With that in mind, why would anyone now take seriously the Tories’ desperate pledge to focus on Britain’s pubs and clubs, unless the plan is to turn them all into health clubs?
As for the 2024 Great British Pub Awards, the thing that stands out for me is not only the absence of a Best Outdoor Smoking Area award, but the lack of recognition for Best Urban Pub or Best Pub That Doesn’t Serve Food - in other words, the type of pub that used to be popular with smokers but is rapidly being consigned to history.
Don’t get me wrong, I like a good gastro pub as much as anyone. Nevertheless, the speed with which Britain’s traditional boozers are closing would appear to have as much to do with social engineering as it does with changing trends.
The Great British Pub Awards therefore represent a useful barometer of where the nation is heading, and I can’t say I like it.