Mark Daniels: Who needs to be responsible now?

Since the British public sort of voted CleggOn in to power earlier this month, most of us in the pub trade have been sitting around, waiting to see what changes - hopefully for the better - our new type of politics might administer to our trade.

Already we're nervous about what George Osbourne might hit us with during the Emergency Budget next month. And Theresa May has said that she wants to thoroughly review the Licensing Act because she wasn't in agreement with it when Labour brought it in.

According to Theresa, it's all the fault of the Licensing Act 2003 that we now have a Binge Drinking Culture in the UK and problems on our streets. Now, whilst I don't condone bad behaviour, alcohol abuse or, indeed, any form of associated violence, I can't help but think that for a long time now one sector of the licensed trade has, pretty much, been getting away with murder.

Supermarkets have long been selling alcohol as a loss-leader to entice customers through the door. Walk in to your local branch and you'll be assaulted with cans of lager piled so high, emblazoned with prices so cheap, it's enough to make your brain melt.

The milk you originally went to collect, on the other hand, is tucked away in the furthest corner of the store.

It's an old merchandising trick, but it works. Any of us in a retail environment have employed it at one point or another. But the thing with supermarkets is that they have very little self-regulation over how their alcohol is sold. Pile it high, sell it cheap, get it out the door and bugger the consequences.

Hence we have a culture of "pre-loading". I don't think there's an individual of any age these days who won't admit to enjoying a drink at home before going out a little later in the evening instead, "because it's cheaper." That leaves the pubs and nightclubs to pick up the pieces.

So I'm in favour of CleggOn coming out and saying that they are going to ban below-cost sales of alcohol. As long as it's administered correctly, and not simply a knee-jerk reaction to a problem, this is a good thing. Of course, they also want to completely overhaul the Licensing Act and will review the the current Alcohol Tax structure, both of which will be either incredibly positive or incredibly negative to our trade depending on which way they choose to go.

Despite all this, however, I couldn't help smiling when I saw the Chief Executive of Tesco's, Sir Terry Leahy, comments this morning: apparently, the company supports the banning of below-cost alcohol sales and may be prepared to consider talking about 'minimum pricing'.

But he is urging pubs to do their bit to deal with the drink issues in this country and to work with Tesco to help them.

Here's the problem, Sir Terry: pubs have been on the arse end of the alcohol stick for quite some time now. We've been beaten about the head with the Mandatory Code and the negative press slating pubs for causing the drink problems and we've been working hard as a trade to clean up our act and our image for a long time now, while the supermarkets have had a reasonably easy ride of it.

Perhaps it's time for your company to own up to playing a part in Britain's binge-drink culture and, rather than getting pubs to do more, maybe you should work with pubs and do your bit instead...