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07-12-2014, 16:31
Visit The Pub Curmudgeon site (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2014/12/culture-shift.html)
Over the years, I’ve sometimes listed a change in ethnic make-up as a cause of pub decline (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/trying-to-make-sense-of-it-all.html) in inner-urban working-class areas. Now Tory peer Lord Hodgson has acknowledged this trend (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11274374/Teetotal-Muslims-partly-to-blame-for-decline-of-pubs-Tory-peer-says.html), but has rather inevitably been accused of “scapegoating Muslims”.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, who was previously a director at one of Britain's biggest brewers, said that the "tides of history" have led to large numbers of Muslims in Britain's cities who do not drink.
He said that "socioeconomic change" is more responsible for the decline of pubs than "rapacious" pub chains.
He said: "I identify three fundamental features behind this. The first is the rapid rate of socioeconomic change in Britain. Twenty-five years ago, the company of which I was a director would have operated probably a dozen pubs in Kidderminster, the home of the carpet trade.
"The carpet trade has gone and there are three pubs left. In areas of Nottingham, Leicester, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham the increase in the Muslim population, who do not drink, leads to many pub closures. It is exceptionally hard for a publican who has put 10 years of his life into trying to build up a business to accept the inevitabilities of these tides of history."But surely it’s simply stating a fact of life, not a case of “look at these bloody Muslims coming over here and shutting our pubs”. If an area becomes largely populated by people who for cultural reasons do not drink alcohol, then inevitably the potential customer base for its pubs will reduce. It’s not a uniform nationwide effect, but it is very obvious that this factor has led to large inner-urban areas of places like Oldham, Rochdale, Blackburn and Bradford losing most, if not all, of their pubs. In the comments to my blogpost, Simon Cooke says (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/trying-to-make-sense-of-it-all.html?showComment=1378128893352#c78760990927232 27258):
In sunny Bradford - and I suspect some other areas too - there's a further factor. Bradford's working class is now overwhelmingly Muslim and they don't drink (or rather they don't drink in pubs - almost all the Asians I know drink).It has also been mentioned in relation to the Gateway (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/closing-gateway.html) in East Didsbury, where it’s not so much Muslims but middle-class Hindus moving in locally.
I wonder which bright spark will be the first to come up with the idea that pubs need to “broaden their appeal” by stopping selling alcohol. And it’s interesting that comments have been disabled on the news article.
More... (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2014/12/culture-shift.html)
Over the years, I’ve sometimes listed a change in ethnic make-up as a cause of pub decline (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/trying-to-make-sense-of-it-all.html) in inner-urban working-class areas. Now Tory peer Lord Hodgson has acknowledged this trend (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11274374/Teetotal-Muslims-partly-to-blame-for-decline-of-pubs-Tory-peer-says.html), but has rather inevitably been accused of “scapegoating Muslims”.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, who was previously a director at one of Britain's biggest brewers, said that the "tides of history" have led to large numbers of Muslims in Britain's cities who do not drink.
He said that "socioeconomic change" is more responsible for the decline of pubs than "rapacious" pub chains.
He said: "I identify three fundamental features behind this. The first is the rapid rate of socioeconomic change in Britain. Twenty-five years ago, the company of which I was a director would have operated probably a dozen pubs in Kidderminster, the home of the carpet trade.
"The carpet trade has gone and there are three pubs left. In areas of Nottingham, Leicester, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham the increase in the Muslim population, who do not drink, leads to many pub closures. It is exceptionally hard for a publican who has put 10 years of his life into trying to build up a business to accept the inevitabilities of these tides of history."But surely it’s simply stating a fact of life, not a case of “look at these bloody Muslims coming over here and shutting our pubs”. If an area becomes largely populated by people who for cultural reasons do not drink alcohol, then inevitably the potential customer base for its pubs will reduce. It’s not a uniform nationwide effect, but it is very obvious that this factor has led to large inner-urban areas of places like Oldham, Rochdale, Blackburn and Bradford losing most, if not all, of their pubs. In the comments to my blogpost, Simon Cooke says (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/trying-to-make-sense-of-it-all.html?showComment=1378128893352#c78760990927232 27258):
In sunny Bradford - and I suspect some other areas too - there's a further factor. Bradford's working class is now overwhelmingly Muslim and they don't drink (or rather they don't drink in pubs - almost all the Asians I know drink).It has also been mentioned in relation to the Gateway (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/closing-gateway.html) in East Didsbury, where it’s not so much Muslims but middle-class Hindus moving in locally.
I wonder which bright spark will be the first to come up with the idea that pubs need to “broaden their appeal” by stopping selling alcohol. And it’s interesting that comments have been disabled on the news article.
More... (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2014/12/culture-shift.html)