City Comment: Hamish Champ, City & Business Editor

What's in a phrase? Take 'long term', for example, and it's sister, 'short term'. 'Long term' is defined in a multitude of ways, including: "a time span of, generally, 20 years" (US Department of Transportation), while 'short term' is "a period of up to five years", (Professional Investment Consultants/UAE) or even "the fact that many traditional management decisions are confined to a yearly, budgetary, or political cycle" (a mouthful courtesy of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council).

When it comes to licensed trade industry players, no-one would accuse private equity groups of participating in the High Street bar circuit for the 'long term', a situation some local authorities are apparently finding a particular headache.

Meanwhile, are large pub operators 'in it' for the long(er) haul? Insofar as they want a business that returns value to their shareholders, the answer has to be a thumbs-up. But ask many people running pubs up and down the country day in, day out and the answer would be a resounding "NO!".

One commentator put it to me last week that rents being applied by some large operators mean the question that needs asking is 'How many pubs out there are really able to achieve the rents being asked on a long-term basis?'

Are pubcos thus risking the long-term viability of their businesses? Or allowing a series of short-term operators to further the companies' own prosperity, before they get out with the money and leave the long-term issues as 'someone else's problem'? Certainly those faced with rising rents think the latter, but still the flow of people willing to take on pubs continues, which says something.

Is government action to peg back rent rises, or indeed what is seen increasingly as becoming a monopoly of sorts, at all likely? Answers on a postcard please...