Blaming the wrong party?

Last week felt like being back in the days of the Heath government, power cuts, and men wearing platform shoes.

At the TUC's conference, speaker after speaker warned trade unionists would not sit idly by while working people suffered the consequences of government spending cuts. It was like being a kid again, watching our old black and white telly with my dad and wondering when the revolution would start.

Over at Coca-Cola's bottling plant, staff walked out over what trade union Unite called a "derisory" two per cent pay offer.

And the GMB, another union, announced the conclusion of its research into the declining sales of beer in pubs, pointing to the 'poisonous' high rents and 'artificially inflated prices' levied on licensees by the 'Big Seven' pubcos.

As one regional brewer put it to me the other week, highly leveraged companies seeking ways to extract even more money from their hard-pressed tenants have only themselves to blame for being thrust into the spotlight.

Arguably a fair point, so I wondered why the GMB had chosen to lump Fuller's in with the likes of Admiral Taverns, Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns when delivering its withering critique of the system.

Slagging off Fuller's was a cheap - and misguided - shot, akin to punching a puppy. Why take aim at an independent family brewer, one that saw its total beer sales rise two per cent last year?

Equating the beer tie as operated by the likes of Fuller's and similar entities to the work of Beelzebub misses the point somewhat.

Meanwhile there's been much talk of legal cases being taken by the GMB on behalf of disgruntled licensees.

I guess these are currently sub judice, but I'm genuinely looking forward to hearing about them when they're concluded. Aren't you?