My Shout: Tony Jennings

Václav Havel — the writer and former Czech president — is on record as saying that beer, as opposed to wine or spirits, is a great begetter of sensible discussion, a drink more likely to stimulate the thought processes than to inflame the passions.

Of course, being a leading member of a nation celebrated for its consumption of beer (the Czechs manage to put away 159 litres per capita a year) he would say that, wouldn't he?

But I'm starting to wonder if there couldn't be something in it.

Take another top Czech beer drinker, President Václav Klaus. A lifelong non-smoker he recently spoke out against a proposal before the Czech parliament that there should be a ban on smoking in pubs.

Firstly, he said, there is little convincing proof available that there is

any such thing as secondary smoking and secondly, and far more importantly, to impose a ban on smoking in pubs would represent an intrusion of the collective state into the area of personal choice.

Not surprisingly really, a new opinion poll shows that 68% of Czechs approve of their president and his remarks against an approval rating of 26% for Czech politicians as a tribe.

Why can't we have rulers like Mr K, instead of a government that thinks it's a surveillance-driven committee of public safety with a remit to stick its nose into every part of our daily lives?

If our rulers drank more beer and less mineral water or carrot juice, maybe they would develop some of the wisdom of President Klaus as well.

If they did, they would quickly realise that every society needs safety valves and that the local, a unique place, neither business nor home, but rather another dimension to many lives, is one of the most important in our society.

Even the Czechs' old communist rulers recognised this fact. Under them beer was cheap, lowly taxed and there was a sort of understanding between rulers and ruled that you could say things in the pub that you perhaps wouldn't say anywhere else.

Maybe it was for the wrong reasons, but at least the old communist government valued its pubs, which is more than you can say for our lot.

The communists realised that if you shut down enough safety valves, sooner or later, you will get an explosion, which is something that you would think a government like ours, morbidly obsessed with the health and safety of us all, must understand. I'm not sure they do.