Crêche out at Wetherspoons with a cheap, responsible pint

Founder Tim Martin reckons he bases his pubs on George Orwell's vision of the perfect boozer, a place with plenty of "elbow room and no music", probably called The Moon Under Water.

For a while this seemed like an optimistic claim but lately I've realised it's me who wasn't getting it.

My nearest 'Spoons is a cavernous former bingo hall that is almost eerily quiet thanks to the no-music policy. People can actually talk, sometimes to people they didn't already know. Or read their paper in space and peace.

The customers, at 4pm anyway, are mostly the retired (sometimes through age, sometimes through unemployment), and the overwhelming feeling inside is one of civility, a mood enhanced by staff who are efficient but seem poised to take no nonsense.

Some see Wetherspoons as both agent and beneficiary of bingeing and teenage drinking. But it would be ridiculous to imagine that these things wouldn't exist if Wetherspoons didn't.

If you think cheap alcohol is of itself a curse, then it's Tesco, where the booze is much cheaper, that should be taken to task.

Martin argues, to mostly deaf ears, that pubs have a community role, teaching responsible drinking and much else besides in an adult environment. Ministers seem not to have any regard for this idea, seeing pubs as merely a social problem and a source of tax — they are missing something important. Among its many functions, my local acts as an informal crêche.

Multi-childrened women with chores to do leave the kids at the pub, with the eldest nominally in charge.

They are looked over by kindly staff and doted on by 30 or so would-be grandparents. Mum does her thing, then returns for half a lager.

If you were of a certain disposition you could cry moral outrage, but actually it seems to work rather well. The kids seem excited, engaged and safe.

Better childcare should perhaps be available but since it isn't, it's awfully decent of Wetherspoons to fill the gap without complaint.

It might not be perfect but then Martin isn't claiming to be a qualified childminder — these are the cards he was dealt.

Chief executive John Hutson has a similarly pragmatic approach, and I've never known him to complain about press coverage. The company's attitude to press relations is to make the top brass readily available but to take the rough with the smooth in terms of outcomes — this is us, write what you like, seems to be the attitude.

In a nation blighted by "entrepreneurs" who are nothing of the sort and bankers who are a tax on the rest of us, Wetherspoons offers a reminder of what businesses are supposed to do.

Staff are well-trained and seem to be well-treated. It offers value for money, makes a profit, pays tax and looks to grow steadily. Unlike some rivals, it didn't run up near-suicidal debts during the boom times and, although the directors get paid well, it's not so much that anyone reasonable could take offence.

Wetherspoons yesterday bought another five pubs from Punch Taverns, taking the total estate to around 750.

They will be much better places after they have been refurbished under the new ownership.

At the moment, the shares don't pay a dividend while the company pays down some borrowings, but they will again before long.

The stock is off the buy lists of the "ethical" fund management industry because of the booze, but there are plenty of reasons to make a case for them to be bought.

Supermarkets price war' is selling us down the river

There's a vicious price war among supermarkets desperate to attract our custom at almost any price. At least you could be forgiven for thinking so if you read newspapers but don't actually go shopping.

The idea that Tesco, Asda and the rest are in a scrap to the death suits the industry just fine and "consultants" are on hand to speculate about what happened to market share in the last week.

(That over the past two years, market share has hardly moved is a point the experts do not make.)

Did Sainsbury's lose a little ground because of a sneaky Morrisons special offer? Is Aldi genuinely on the up, becoming more than a place whose purpose is to keep the riff-raff out of Waitrose? For retail nerds, this may be an interesting game but it disguises the real issue: all supermarkets are winning, taking an ever greater portion of the nation's spending at the expense of smaller firms.

As Sainsbury's boss Justin King put it: "We don't need anyone else to fail for us to succeed."

In this context, who's up and who's down over the past seven days hardly matters. Of course, if the grocery sector were really as competitive as it likes to think, its profits would surely fall, at least sometimes.

You'll have noticed that they don't.

Maybe more supermarkets is what Britain really wants. But it's hard to have a clear argument while that price war story keeps going round and round...

The retail giants are having to bow to Majestic

IT is possible to beat the supermarkets — just not at their own game.

I asked Majestic Wine boss Steve Lewis yesterday if the recent collapse of Wine Rack and Threshers was good news for his business.

Not in the least, he says.

Those two sorry outfits were on the High Street and competing with the cheapo deals at your nearest giant grocer, which is sometimes selling wine as a loss-leader so it can rip you off for toilet paper at the same time.

Unsurprisingly, they just couldn't compete with this, and Lewis has no intention of trying.

Majestic's plan is to be as different as possible to the supermarkets, to have knowledgeable staff and excellent service.

To offer value in quirky ways, which may not be the same as being "cheap".

In particular, by reacting to the strength of the euro against the pound and promoting deals from New Zealand, South Africa and Chile and avoiding pricey wines from France et al, Lewis has been able to keep customers happy.

Despite hard times, the spend per bottle is up, as are profits, which rose 9% to £6 million for the half year. Cheers.