Standing Room Only ?

 It's good to hear that the Scottish Premier League (SPL) are to trial safe standing areas in some football stadiums from next season. It's highly unlikely that the same thing will happen in England though. Football fans don't matter in England. Particularly the sort of football fans who'd like to see a return to the terraces. If you support a  Premier League team and are glued to the Champions League on Sky  like a tattooed, track suit wearing fuckwit then the powers that be will happily pretend to listen to your views. At the same time they'll  try and take  all your cash. If, like me, you support Orient - or any other lower league club - you might as well fuck off and die.

The Conservatives have always had a deep distrust of football supporters, viewing them as little more than animals.  The game has been sanitised and politicians like to claim allegiance to a football club in order to court popularity. Their choice of club is usually predictably anodyne. Cameron is said to support Aston Villa along with Prince William, whilst George  Osbourne strikes me as too much of a mincer to be interested in football. The point is that few, if any MP's, will admit to supporting Millwall. Both the Conservatives and the Labour party are happy to see English football become the preserve of the few that can afford it.     

In the case of Scottish football it's all a bit different.  The Scots had to do something as Scottish football was headed for a particularly nasty economic meltdown. The SPL has nobody to blame but themselves for this state of affairs. They've allowed the Celtic and Rangers to call the shots and in doing so have impoverished the game. They're to be applauded however for trialling a safe standing system that the vast majority of fans support.

The economic imperative that's driven the change in the SPL's thinking doesn't really exist in England.  Lots of smaller clubs are struggling financially but the FA and the Premier League couldn't care less. Therefore,  the only way to  bring about the changes  in the game that I suspect many fans would like to see, is to vote with your feet. Don't subscribe to Sky, don't watch the Champions League and don't watch England games. There are several advantages to this approach. Firstly  it'll save you a fortune. Even better than the welcome financial gain is the thought that you won't have to watch total wankers  like John Terry and Rio Ferdinand attempt to play football.

If you really want to support football rather than the money men, try a  lower league or non league football match. I was recently invited by a friend to watch Leiston FC play Enfield Town in the Ryman League. The game took place at Leistons' Victory Road ground. It was only  eight quid to get in. You could stand and watch the game with a reasonably priced pint in your hand in a good atmosphere. The crowd on a chilly Saturday afternoon was around 300-400. The standard of the football wasn't all that bad either. Leiston won 2-1, with the Nathan Stone scoring an impressive winner. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon and I'll be putting another eight quid through Leistons' turnstiles soon.

PUB TRADE AT THE MERCY OF THE ROBBER BARONS

The pub trade appears to be in crisis. Since 1980 17,000  pubs in the UK  have closed their doors. A combination of factors such as cheap supermarket booze, the smoking ban and the bitter economic climate are often blamed for the demise of local watering holes all over the country. This isn't the whole story. The pub trade isn't dying. It's being murdered.

The majority of pubs that have closed in recent years belong to the so-called "Pubcos". Enterprise Inns and Punch Taverns are two of the best known examples of a "Pubco". They operate pubs on a "tie" system. The pub company sells a lease on a pub to a tenant. The tenant then pays rent to the pub company for the pub itself and is also forced to buy their beer from the pub company. It is vital to understand at this point that the "Pubcos" don't actually make beer.  They buy beer on the open market and then sell it at inflated prices to their leaseholders.Some estimates suggest that pub companies are inflating the price of beer by up to 45% . Despite the fact that they pay rent, the publican is also responsible for repairs to the property. If the roof caves in, it's down to the publican not the pub company who own the building.  It's a bit like paying rent on a flat , being forced to buy your groceries from your  landlord and then having foot the bill when the ceiling caves in. According to the Government this is all perfectly legal....

As if that's not bad enough, when a leaseholder  decides that they're fed up with lining the pockets of their feudal overlords and decide to throw  in the towel they're hit with the draconioan "delaps" clause.  Just to insure that they've squeezed every last penny out of their impoverished leaseholders, some "Pubcos" insist that the property is restored to the condition it was in at the start of the lease.

  Let;s briefly look at the numbers. The rent on a recently closed Bristol pub owned by Enterpise Inns was £38,000 per year. The former landlord estimated that he paid  £200- 300,000 per year to Enterprise Inns in addition to his rent. In his last quarter of trading he made a profit of £700.  The Guardian recently estimated that tax losses to the Treasury are £5.5 million per week as result of pub closures.

The Government recently refused to introduce legal changes to the system that the pub companies operate. They did make some minor concessions such as allowing independent arbitration on rent increases.The Governments response to the Select Committee report on the pub trade was greeted with dismay by the Campaign for Real Ale.  Brian Binley MP was quoted as saying that the Government had "sold out to the devil," on the question of publicans rights.

Under the circumstances you'd expect the the pub companies would be making a fortune. It you want to find an example of how to run a business into the ground with a combination of greed and crass incompetence then you need look no further than Enterprise Inns. If you doubt my word, then type the words "Enterprise Inns" followed by a swear word of your choice into Google and look at the results. It you're not familiar with bad language may I suggest "Enterprise Inns cunts" as a good starting point.  Enterprise Inns borrowed huge sums of money on the bond markets and used it to buy vast numbers of UK pubs. In 2007 Enterprise Inns stock was over £7 a share. It's now worth 28 pence a share. The company has net debt of over £3 billion pounds. Ted Tuppen the CEO of Enterprise Inns makes some smooth noises about helping publicans who are struggling in tough times.  However the suspicion persists that Enterprise Inns are more interested in running pubs into the ground so they can apply for change of use planning consent and convert the property into houses or flats.

The dynamic duo of Cameron and Osboure have made plently of noise regarding their support for small buisness. When it come down to it they're really much happier protecting spivs such as Ted Tuppen. The high debt speculation model that Enterprise Inns was founded on has a distinct Thatcherite ring to it. This is probably why the toxic tories are happy to support the current feudal status quo.