Alistair Arkley column

Jan 18 2006 By Alistair Arkley, The Journal

Cast your mind back a few weeks ago to what we were told would be the mayhem about to descend on our streets and communities.

Large sections of the media - and quite a few politicians - were predicting that the new licensing legislation would cause havoc.

Now move forward to today and ask yourself what really happened? The answer, I suggest, is little or nothing. It would appear that wherever you care to look across England, the media is now reporting that, if anything, the more flexible arrangements have made life easier for police and in many places actually reduced levels of disorder.

Talk to those in the pub trade - and I suspect many hard-pressed officials in local authorities - and they will tell you that behind the scenes there was genuine havoc as a direct result of a system affecting thousands of premises being implemented on a ridiculously short timescale and against the background of media and political near-hysteria.

I would like to think that the lessons of the licensing fiasco might have had some impact on the Government, but I fear my optimism could be misplaced given what we are now seeing over the latest political hot potato about to descend on my industry. I believe that throughout the hospitality trade there is a widespread recognition that at some stage the days of allowing smoking on our premises will come to an end.

What we had hoped for was a sensible well-ordered process which would move forward with at least a decent level of acceptance from the general public - and more importantly our customers.

In fact it would appear that once again this issue has become mired in the short-term considerations of politics, spin and hype. The result is that the Government, which had apparently recognised that a very significant shift in the social fabric of our country should be approached on a step-by-step basis, has suddenly changed the ground rules.

The Government's decision to throw its previous policy out of the window and follow the `free vote' route has nothing to do with morality or logic, but a short-term and knee-jerk reaction to the political pressures of the day.

Once again those of us in business find ourselves the victim of that old maxim that a week in politics really is a long time.

Alistair Arkley is chairman of the Northern Business Forum and chairman of New Century Inns.