MPs WITH THEIR SNOUTS IN THE BARREL – WELL DONE!

Regular readers will know my feelings about free-loading MPs. So when I first came across the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group, I suspected this was just another excuse for getting their snouts in the trough – albeit a trough many of us wouldn’t mind getting our snouts in.

But no. It seems they are that rarity – a band of MPs doing something useful. They have just finished a two-year inquiry into the decline of the great British pub. (A tough job if there were site visits involved, but somebody’s got to do it.)

And now, with pubs closing at an alarming rate, they are set to make recommendations about what the government could – or should – do to help pub-less communities. Expectations are high in the trade. I hope they are not misplaced.

My mate Frank, who chronicled my adventures in When It Comes To The Crunch (see www.huckbooks.co.uk), lives in a village where the only pub closed several years ago.

‘It was the hub of the village,’ he said. ‘Now the only time I ever see anybody to have a proper chat to is at the annual fete. The soul’s gone out of the place.’

Well, not quite. The village’s real ale lovers have organised twice-yearly beer festivals at the village hall for the past few years. I shall be there tomorrow, doing my bit for a good cause.

And if I happen to have a rather good time doing it, it will only prove the case: every British citizen should live within walking distance of a pub.

Wasn’t it in the Magna Carta? Or was that the Magners Charter? Anyway, it was just above 'Every citizen shall visit ye www.huckbooks.co.uk, whatsoever that turneth out to be, and purchase yon books.'