Talk:Lewes Arms controversy

Background to creation of page. The Lewes Arms dispute was on the Greene King Brewery page. I edited [1] that section and started the following discussion with User:Jooler.

SilkTork 12:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Lewes Arms

Hi. The Lewes Arms protest is a worthy cause, and I understand what you are doing. But you know that the lengthy protest content cannot remain on the Greene King page. This is not the place for such propaganda, and you must be fully aware of that. If you have any issues with my shortened version of events, please come and speak to me on my talk page. Regards, SilkTork 18:32, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The Lewes Arms boycott was one of the most signficant events affecting the company in recent years. They issued a press release about it - see[ http://www.greeneking.co.uk/our_news.php here]. A direct quote from that press release reads as follows Greene King chief executive Rooney Anand added, "The Lewes Arms is a very special local pub with a unique place in the life of the town. "We underestimated the depth of feeling and level of reaction about our initial decision and I believe that the conclusion the team put forward to return Harveys to the bar is the right one." - The dispute prompted a complete turnabout in their policy that may well have repurcussions for other pubs that have lost the right to sell local beers. One of the Green King directors (Mike Angela) was eventually sacked from the company because it was his decision to remove Harveys and he refused to change his mind. It turned into a public relations disaster. It was only after the appointment of a new director in charge of the newly created "local pubs" division that the turnabout in policy happened and so far this policy change has only occured at the Lewes Arms. Just look at the amount of press coverage it got. It was covered by nearly all of the major newspapers and by the Brewing industry press. In particular look at this - This was a four page article in the G2 section of the Guardian. The front cover of the G2 section for that edition can be seen [2] and the main photograph acccompanying the article here. It was almost certainly the fallout from this article that led to Mark Angela getting the boot. The dispute was featured on BBC Radio 4 in two separate programmes. The Today Programme and You and Yours (the consumer programme). The latter programme on Radio 4 featured The Publican's Business and City correspondent Hamish Champ commenting directly on this dispute and its effect on the company. He had written about the dispute in his weekly colum a number of times see here for example. The campaign attracted the attention of the Mayor of Lewes (see his comment on the Hamish Champ article above and also the Daily Mail article). It also attracted the direct involvement of the MP for Lewes Norman Baker. He managed to get a stay of execution on the beer twice and had direct discussions with members of the Greene King board trying to tell them that withdrawing the beer would be a disastrous PR mistake but they didn't listen. The story was featured heavily in a number of significant beer related blogs eg here and here (this is very widely read)) and in many regional CAMRA newsletters up and down the country (eg Darlington and Cambridge). It even got in to Private Eye (here) The story was covered by Reuters here and UPI see here and was seen and syndicated in various newspapers around the world inclusing USA, Australia and Jamaica. The day that Greene King announced the turnaround there were reporters from Der Spiegel inteviewing outside of the pub. Although it may at first appear to be some minor local dispute it became something much greater and has wider implications still. What you removed covered the issues concisely and had full citations. Jooler 23:56, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I note what you are saying. However, there was also controversy regarding Hardys and Hansons, Morland and Ridley's. The section Takeovers and controversy which contains the details on Lewes arms makes reference to those as well. It's about getting the balance right and not overloading a general article on a brewery with a lengthy section in which details not concerning Greene King directly ("Harveys Best Bitter was the winner the Gold Medal for Best Bitter at the annual CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain awards two years in succession in 2005 and 2006 and is extremely popular in Sussex") are expanded upon. One or two sentences would seem to cover the main points. ("Towards the end of 2006, a pub in Lewes, East Sussex started a well-publicised protest against Greene King removing the locally produced Harveys Best Bitter from sale. [5] [6]. On 20 April 2007, under media pressure [16], the company announced that it would reinstate the Harveys ales at the pub".) If you feel that the Lewes dispute is notable enough to have a long section then it probably needs its own page. I will create such a page for you and link to it from the Greene King page. It may be challenged by other editors, in which case it will go through discussion and you will be able to put your points forward there. Regards SilkTork 11:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. The new article is Lewes Arms controversy, and there are links to it from Greene King, Harveys and Lewes. I will also make a redirect from Lewes Arms in case anyone does a search on that. Good luck. SilkTork 12:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I've made a quick attempt to tone down the language. However the article still needs to be a little more factual, and a little less contentious. I'll copy this discussion to the talk page so people can see the background to the creation of the page, and that it hasn't emerged from nowhere. SilkTork 12:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Mark Angela

Whilst it was clearly wrong to say that Mark Angela was sacked, there is, equally, no evidence that he resigned. The statements from GK merely say that he was leaving as a result of the reorganisation and stepping down from the board. There were no "rumours" that he had been sacked. These were just interpretations of his timely departure. --QuestingVole 00:27, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

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