Mitchells & Butlers deserve to go under

It’s hard to have sympathy with the Mitchells and Butlers pub chain.

M&B, who run several popular pubs in the area (such as The Crown (Birkdale), the Railway (Formby) and loads of Toby’s, Vintage and Ember Inns) are in dire straits after a gamble on the property and financial markets left them £391m out of pocket and heading for a takeover or merger with that other pub monster Punch Taverns.

Although the news was only announced yesterday, staff round here knew something was brewing. Despite booming business, budgets and staffing levels have been cut back amid rumours of trouble. Barmaids I spoke to today were pretty bitter that stupid movements in the financial markets, rather than punters not buying steak and ale pies, could see them out of a job.

The pub got involved with the controversial real estate tycoon Robert Tchenguiz, who told them they could sell their pubs to a company that would lease them back. The plan went kaput after the cost of debt rose dramatically last year and the company was left exposed by the falling value of hedge funds (a form of financial spread betting) taken out, ironically, to minimise risk.

But the chain was bound to come a cropper because they run their pubs in a cynical and greedy fashion.

Few in Southport can forget or forgive the sheer vandalism that was their transformation of the Hesketh Arms in Churchtown from a fantastic village ale house to a big wooden spoon of a fake gastro-pub nightmare.

But that monstrosity pales into insignificance when compared to the hateful way they transformed Formby’s Bay Horse into a Toby Carvery shed.

The Bay Horse was a pub where aristocrats and gypsies rubbed shoulders, were the beer was always good and the conversation always flowing. Despite furious protests, they killed it stone dead.

It doesn’t matter that they serve cold cask ale in some of their pubs, or that they are often tastefully decked out. They deserve to go to the wall because they are opposed to truth, beauty and tradition.