Saturday 7 May 2016

Cumberland lap

I blogged the other day about the Hairy Bikers, Dave Myers and Simon King, coming to Manchester as part of their national pub tour on BBC2. Last night, they were in Carlisle.

The first half of the programme was about the State Management Scheme which ran pubs and brewed beer in Carlisle from the First World War to the early seventies, when Ted Heath's Conservative government privatised it, with the presenters saying how odd it would be if the State ran your local and made the drinks served in it. They then met a group of older drinkers at a bowls club who said that they liked the State Management Scheme pubs and that the beer had been both good and cheap.

Perhaps something for Comrade Corbyn to think about...


3 comments:

  1. I'd always thought it was Mad Maggie who privatised it, but a quick google shows you're right. Damn! One thing I can't hate her for! Mind you, there's definitely no shortage of other things.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Imagine the constant arguments there would be now abot a state-run pub company seeking to close "uneconomic" pubs.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There was brieflt talk of nationalising all pubs around 1950. But the Labour government was voted out before they could enact it.

    ReplyDelete