I assume you're wrong on this, as we have clearly been told by another poster that the pub industry is in fact thriving, so what you say simply can't be true. There must be double the pubs, and they are surely all packed to the gunwales.

I was hardly denying that there have been major changes in society and social activity, though, nor was I trying to advance some simplistic one-size-fits-all panacea. The fact is, supermarkets and developers have been responsible for closing down of hundreds of well-used community pubs by taking advantage of lax planning laws, these being the reason they target pubs if sited where the supermarkets want to be. They can be soft targets. Whether this particular pub was one of them doesn't affect the wider point, and if a pub really has lost its trade and can't replace it, then like any business, it is doomed, there's no argument there. The argument is that in very many cases the closing of valuable community pubs is a scandal, against the wishes of locals and nothing to do with viability. I don't argue that's the case in every closure.

On something else blamed on Muslims, an old bloke on the bus a few weeks back was pointing out to the woman sat next to him that the Henry Moore sculpture 'Reclining Woman' had been removed from in front of the Leeds Art Gallery as 'muslims had complained'. The bus then went down to Leeds City Square, with it's many naked nymphs. He didn't mention why the muslims had ignored those.

BTW, the sculpture has been on a bit of a tour, and was re-installed last week.

Maybe being on "tour" is a euphemism for Muslims in a variety of locations objecting to its presence!?

If it was a Henry Moore sculpture, then how, apart from reading the label, would you have any clue what the feck it was, though? Talk about stealing a living!

Agreed, likewise David Hockney, Kings new clothes and all that.

Or the RFL's version, Celtic Crusaders

Very unlikely if a pub was successful it would have been closed so that a supermarket could expose a loophole in the law. Most likely the pub was struggling to survive so closing it was the only viable option. Thankfully the supermarkets had the capital to renovate it and put it to use employing local people. The alternative another empty licenced property for vandals to have a go at.

Although you have a point, I'm keen to know how many of these locals actually frequent their community pub on a regular basis? There has been a culture in Britain for a while now where people see a protest and just draw up a banner or sign a petition without actually having a clue about what's going on. Pubs only close if they're not thriving, fact.

I go to my local pub on average twice a week and know most of the regulars and the bar staff on first name terms. Christmas is a good time of year to see the sort of people who would be outraged at the closure of their local and would be the first to sign the petition. The truth is they only venture in once a year to behave like animals for the office Christmas pi$$ up.

You can't be that keen to know, as the information is out there, The All-Party parliamentary Save the Pub Group, CAMRA, etc., read up on the subject then you won't need to speculate. It goes on and on. www.hemeltoday.co.uk/news/more-n ... -1-6397215

You can't be that keen to know, as the information is out there, The All-Party parliamentary Save the Pub Group, CAMRA, etc., read up on the subject then you won't need to speculate. It goes on and on. www.hemeltoday.co.uk/news/more-n ... -1-6397215

Massacres in Paris being blamed on Muslims too.

If only Dubya & Tone were still around.
They'd 'ave been on their own private hotline to God and got all this sorted.

They're as much Muslims as the IRA were Catholics