Of course there are two sides to every story, and in this instance the tenant Kirsty Valentine complained that her pubco had not honoured a promise to reduce her rent payments in exchange for improvements she had made to the pub.
Enterprise Inns said that she was determined not to honour the terms of her tenancy agreement and that “she and her associates have regularly provided misleading and false information regarding the situation”.
Valentine embarked on what now looks like ill-advised, costly and to-date unsuccessful legal action (counterclaims apparently pending), and the protracted result was a visit from the bailiffs and a locksmith.
Aggresive
The PMA duly sent a reporter to the pub to cover the eviction and speak to the evictee and her supporters about the circumstances of her departure. But she was asked to leave the pub because some of those present felt this publication does not exhibit sufficient sympathy, empathy and balance in its coverage of the tied pub sector.
I have to say we try.
But it is sometimes very difficult to exhibit those qualities to a group of people whose ringleaders are so venomously aggressive. Have you ever attempted to feed a mouth that is biting you?
The PMA and its journalists receive a stream of invective on social media from some anti-pubco activists any time the publication dares to question their worldview or seek a pubco perspective on a story — including personal and professional abuse that includes accusations of bias and taking bribes from pub companies.
And God forbid you ever seek to defend yourself or try to get the trolling stopped. I received my first menacing phone message for that!
It’s not just the PMA. I was with the pubs minister the other night when he received a tweet from a ‘pub campaigner’ calling him a ‘see you next Tuesday’.
Alienating
I know this behaviour causes frustration among the more intelligent, thoughtful and professional campaigners, who make genuine efforts to provide a sensible commentary on their claims of pub company wrongdoing.
One recently asked whether a particular PMA editorial decision was “a backlash to the Twitter nonsense going on with Rob and some of the more vocal licensees, which I suppose is inevitable, but it isn’t fair on the campaign”.
Not consciously — I can promise — but I have to say that the rabid and one-eyed hostility of some of his co-campaigners is alienating in the extreme.
That their hate-fuelled comments are occasionally followed-up with demands for meetings and help with press coverage borders on the schizophrenic. Right or wrong, it’s not hard to imagine the conversations that take place at a pubco HQ when someone they consider to be a troublesome tenant (or a tenant with troublesome friends) makes a last-minute plea for mercy.
Why is no-one from the Fair Deal For Your Local coalition moderating these campaign hijackers?
And why do they tolerate fanatics on the fringe of their organisation who seem so determined to ruin their reputation by association, create influential enemies and potentially make matters worse for those they claim to help?
With friends like these…