Hamish Champ: Is Healey's package even likely to be implemented?

Despite City analysts being non-plussed, the minister for pubs' finger-wagging aimed at the nation's pubcos was greeted by many licensees (and one MP in particular) as the best bit of news since the relief of Mafeking.

While its implementation is open to question, at least John Healey's package of support measures appears to show the government is taking pubs seriously.

Depending on where you stand within the pub trade Healey's proposals were akin to the curate's egg. Good news for those hoping to keep open a much-loved community pub and those who see the beer tie, restrictive covenants and beer flow monitoring types as the work of Beelzebub.

But sadly - perhaps predictably, given supermarkets' economic power - we heard zilch on the vexed issue of cheap booze in the off-trade, a situation which affects not just tied pubs but freehouses as well.

The timing of the announcement itself was interesting. After all, there's a Budget this week. Who knows, maybe the Chancellor will lay off beer duty to show how, er, caring he is towards pubs, brewers and consumers, though his track record in this area suggests the opposite.

But this government has had ages to do something about the nation's pubs, yet chooses to 'act' now. Little if anything will be implemented before a general election on May 6. While anti-tie campaigners won't give a hoot, I smell a pre-election rat.

And if Labour is returned to opposition, what then? I know BIS committee big cheese Peter Luff, cock-a-hoop at Healey's announcement, hopes the pressure on pubcos will be maintained after the election. But will the sector remain a political priority?

Assuming the Tories win in May will they stick to Healey's proposals? Maybe, if they were to give an influential department to the aforementioned Luff. Yet one City analyst wondered last week whether a Prime Minister Cameron would even bother keeping a post to cover the on-trade. In the event of a hung Parliament, how high up the agenda will pubs be?

Meanwhile I thought it interesting that a spokesman for the GMB trade union told me last week his organisation doesn't have a problem with the likes of Enterprise Inns or Punch Taverns owning its pubs, provided they are removed the supply equation.

If pub companies survive what is the likelihood of them becoming mere rent collectors? Answers on a postcard, etc.

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How many of you have seen the TV ads aimed at steering children away from drinking alcohol?

The commercial features sad-looking children and the message is to get parents to stop their young 'uns being drawn to drinking booze before they are the right age to do so.

Laudable stuff. But when I saw the ad on the telly this past weekend it was immediately followed by… a commercial promoting half-price wine at Morrisons, the supermarket chain. You couldn't make it up.

Why doesn't the pub industry put aside its arguments for five minutes, pull together for once and mount a TV ad campaign promoting the economic and social value of the nation's boozers, irrespective of who owns the bricks and mortar? Oooh, I feel a campaign coming on...