New Labour stupidity. Alan Campbell - 'I will regulate pubs, but I don't visit them'

Alan Campbell stated “I am trying to think of the last time that I was in a pub. It is probably easier for MPs not go to into pubs because we have work to do when we go in there — I do not mean bar work.”

Home Office minister Alan Campbell made the admission at a debate on the controversial mandatory alcohol retailing code at a Police and Crime Bill Committee hearing.

The code, which could be in force from the summer, would see mandatory conditions placed on all alcohol retailers, including curbs on some drinks deals and offering smaller drinks measures. Councils could attach more stringent conditions to multiple venues in hotspots.

Addressing concerns about the burden of the code leading to pub closures, Campbell said: “I agree that we have to be very careful about burdens, but the evidence sessions showed that there was a whole range of reasons why pubs closed, not least the social changes that are taking place."

British Beer and Pub Association director of communications Mark Hastings said: “So, the man who can’t remember the last time he was in a pub, thinks he knows more than the trade about why pubs are closing and why this code is necessary.

“It’s an extraordinary admission from someone who is proposing measures that, on the Government’s own admission, will cost the pub sector hundreds of millions of pounds a year. 

Doesn’t he think it might be a good idea to get out there and see what today’s pubs are really like, before issuing laws that will damage them further?”

So lets have a look at Alan Campbell, he was the chap who helped draft the Drinking Banning Orders, a law that has failed.

Not a single order issued in two years! Link

Not a single violent drunk has been banned from pubs or clubs since a new law was introduced two years ago, ministers said yesterday.

They admitted no Drinking Banning Orders, which can bar a problem drunk from premises for up to two years, had been issued since 2006.

Although being inept and passing failed laws still did not stop him claiming and voting to keep the £24K second home allowance.

Mind you he likes badly thought out laws having voted to lock up dusky folk for 42 days.

And ineptitude like his does not come at a cheap price, he cost the fine taxpayers of the UK the sum of £153,621 in expenses (thats on top of his wage as an MP).

He also voted to exempt MP's from freedom of information requests.

As well as having a contempt of our freedoms by voting to have us issued ID cards.

I am tempted to ask if his not drinking in the pubs he regulates has anything to do with his being a champagne socialist?

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