It was like being breathalysed after a night out when you'd

Wolverhampton & Dudley was another pubco that could confidently blow into Martin O'Neill's bag. Its business practices are progressive and even-handed, reflecting a genuine desire for tenants to succeed. And Punch, too, knew it could walk away from the inquiry unblemished on the basis of efforts made over the past two years to improve what was often a pretty tacky culture.

So no surprise, then, that faced with the well-prepared evidence of these three companies, delivered smoothly and impressively by their senior executives, that the Trade & Industry Select Committee would wonder why the Federation of Small Businesses was making quite so much fuss. All the more so when the FSB's star witness seemed to be more than a little economic with the truth.

Yet the committee was clearly not entirely happy to conclude there is nothing rotten in the state of pubcoland. Could all those 300 angry submissions from tenants really be just hot air? A line in their report's conclusions acknowledges they may not have grasped the full picture. "It may well be that not all pubcos follow best practice."

The guffaws that must have set off amongst many smaller tenants would embarrass even the thickest-skinned politicians. If the committee had really wanted to know what was going on, they should have also called some of the less distinguished pubcos to give evidence. If they'd turned over the rocks and seen some of the third-rank pubcos, running batches of struggling pubs that have changed hands three or four times in the past few years, they'd have seen a different form of pond life. The unsavoury and duplicitous practices that go on regularly amongst less scrupulous landlords might have prompted them to toughen up their demands for reform.

At the end of the day, frustrated tenants who had hoped for so much from the politicians may reflect they were let down by their lack of lobbying power. When you're up against the big battalions, you need to be just as well organised.

All credit to the FSB for getting a Commons inquiry, but when the action began, they just melted away.

Licensees are entrepreneurs, running demanding businesses. They are not lobbyists. The chances are that the submissions lodged with the committee were not neatly presented. Many may have looked distinctly unprofessional. Unfortunately for them, that would have weakened their case. These are conclusions that Mike Bell and his Freedom for Pubs organisation arrived at some time ago. Until smaller, less well-equipped tenants find help in fighting their corner and arguing their case, they will just not register on thepolitical stage.