People who write about pubs tend to write about beer first then only reluctantly get onto pubs when it dawns on them they've been living through a permanently rolling pubs crisis which began before most of of them were old enough to drink.
And then realise it's POLITICAL and don't write about pubs
![20th Century Pub with passage
A composite image showing the cover of Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey’s 2017 book 20th Century Pub: From Beer House to Booze Bunker beside a photographed page headed
“POWER TO THE PEOPLE”.
Highlighted text introduces J. Mark Dodds with the words: “One popular conspiracy theory has it that pubcos deliberately drive marginally viable pubs into the ground to justify such sell-offs. Publican J. Mark Dodds is an outspoken campaigner for the rights of pubco tenants who views pubcos as ‘asset strippers’:
‘These [pub closures] are regarded as the isolated odd story of one pub or another that: “sadly is no longer economically viable” (according to the freeholder), even though there is a whole community up in arms about it, saying they NEED a pub, WANT a pub, and will put money into saving their pub, IF they get the chance to save it. And carpers-on say, “If you didn’t want to lose it you should have used it” – while completely missing the point that the pub was not used because it was deliberately run down to make it “unviable” and suitable for sale.’”
The framing is significant: a structural argument about pub-company ownership, underinvestment, decline and disposal is introduced as a “popular conspiracy theory”, rather than examined through the evidence behind it.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o42gp2uj2ioh57w6ltrgmsj6/bafkreictt7oelmlni2fqtprgr5azz7w2rtzhtm4kxdxv4zkddoxak5ukyq)
