Hamish Champ: Wanna go tie-free? Check out the Emerald Isle

Despite my own political stance being positioned somewhat to the left of centre the newspaper I regularly choose to read is the good ol' Daily Telegraph​.

Liberal chums of mine scoff at this, but I gamely retort that they are missing the crux of the matter. I mean, what's the point of reading stuff you agree with all the time, stuff that isn't going to challenge your own perceived wisdoms?

Continuing my devil's advocacy theme of last week, where's the harm in considering viewpoints that at least make you think about familiar topics from a different angle? You might not agree with them, but they can add perspective. Hence my near-addiction to the Peterborough column and its ilk.

Now I know that a number of people don't agree with everything I write in this here weekly blog, especially when it comes to my personal views on stuff like the smoking ban, customer service in pubs and the moral conundrum of close relationships between human beings and beasts of the pasture and forest.

That said, last week I meets an investment type who knows the Irish pub market quite well. After talking about the state of the UK licensed trade we gets to chatting about pubs in the Emerald Isle.

Many, he said, were suffering. No doubt because of the smoking ban, I opined knowingly, ready to roll out facts and figures about the effects of the ban on the licensed sector versus the cost to the Irish economy of treating people whose lungs have the consistency of a loofah and who gozz up bucketloads of pale green phlegm every day.

Nope, he replied. It was largely because many licensees had signed commercial leases with their landlords at the height of the Celtic Tiger Boom Thang™. While these were all fine and dandy at a time of the economic surge the country was then experiencing, in the current market conditions they were proving to be unsustainable. Not smoking then, but onerous leases. Sounds familiar doesn't it?

It's my understanding that there is no pubco model in Ireland similar to the one you'd fine here. It's all free trade.

That said, licensees are restricted in the number of brewers they can deal with, since the major players have the market pretty much sewn up. So there's little leeway there when things get tough.

Would the bigger members of the UK's brewing community have a similar field day here in the event the pubco model goes tits up? My investment friend certainly thought so. He bet the keys to his spare Porsche that a number of UK brewers would love the tie to go, since it would enable some, perhaps even many of them to hike prices.

Then there's them commercial leases waiting round the corner.

I recognise this is simplifying the situation and doubtless I'm raising points which many of my more... erudite readers will take pleasure in rebuffing, with some going so far as to call me a 'bassoon' and worse. But I reckon it's still a debate worth having, one that extends beyond base name-calling. Whaddya reckon?

So, plain sailing in a tie-free world? Maybe not…

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NB: I won't be penning anything next weekend as I plan to be completely off my face at the Glastonbury Festival. Still, like me I expect you could do with the break…