AS IS apparent from my address, I am a publican, working in a fast-dying trade.

Since I entered the pub trade in 1970, drinking habits have altered dramatically.

For 30 years I ran a city centre pub in Oxford. Students, faculty, business and tourists.

Business and faculty drinking dropped markedly in the 1990s, whereas students (I was one once) carried on regardless.

“Binge” drinking, whatever that is, is not a new concept. Far from it, as going to the pub to get lashed is as old as the hills.

What has changed is the lack of professionalism of bar staff and, let’s face it, young inexperienced management in bars.

Gone are the days when the landlord’s/landlady’s word was law in the pub. When control and responsibility were the first considerations.

Now, the top priority is profit, profit, profit and keep the overheads down.

That means minimal staff, thus reducing control in the bar and constantly having to meet “targets”, just like teachers, nurses, GPs, etc and look what that has done to teaching and the health services.

Charging a tax surcharge per alcohol unit will only speed up the death of pubs and I don’t mean the High Street bars, gin palaces and pub chains. They will survive, come what may.

Our present Prime Minister used to use a local pub in his Witney constituency. I would not be surprised if he and our Chancellor and London’s mayor did not use my pub in Oxford when students, as we were for many years a regular haunt of the Bullingdon Club.

Does he really want to see that type of local disappear? Do any of you?

I have just heard a senior director of a brewing firm deploring the selling of alcohol below cost, as loss-leaders.

Well, I can only say that if your morals are that shocked by the practice, sir, here’s a little bit of advice. Stop selling your products to supermarket chains who do it. Or is the profit to you and the massive beer contracts too much to lose? If we got back to pubs, off-licences (a designated premises for off-sales) and controlled premises, we might make a small inroad into the problem.

Stop giving licences to any corner shop, petrol stations (I have never reconciled my mind to petrol stations selling alcohol and drink-driving) and clamp down on the supermarkets over loss-leading promotions.

You won’t stop alcohol abuse but you might, just might, start to reduce it.

We have, historically, always been a hard-drinking nation and we have pretended over the past century that it didn’t go on. But now, with raised awareness of health and personal well-being, our leaders are getting rattled.

Maybe I’m a cynic but it’s a good old chestnut to pull out when you need to divert the nation’s attention from other problems (add other red herrings in like obesity, smoking, caffeine intake, etc).

Don’t forget one important fact. The Government makes a large amount of revenue out of alcohol and tobacco with duty and VAT.

How easy it is to pontificate about us irresponsible publicans and divert attention from the real problems, to cover the fact that the revenue from fags and booze has been a lifeline to governments for decades.

David Kyffin, The Maybush, Newbridge