Veto Ale: Cheers, JD Wetherspoon and Tim Martin

Today let’s salute a great NMFT in the form of Tim Martin, founder of the JD Wetherspoon pub chain, following his “Veto Ale” initiative which has seen an exclusive new beer introduced to the Wetherspoon outlets to commemorate David Cameron standing up to Merkozy and the rest of the EU bullies.

I first discovered the Wetherspoon chain in the late eighties on a weekend trip to London (OK then, a weekend pub crawl in London). At that time they were not that well known in the Midlands. But the formula discovered that night in the Neasden pub – decent real ale, spacious surroundings and no noise – was instantly appealing and made it plain that the formula ought to be rolled out on a nationwide basis. And so it was, with justified success for investors and pleasure for beer drinkers right up to the present day.

Tim Martin has certainly had the courage of his convictions in many ways. He founded the first Wetherspoon pub, as legend has it, because of the lack of scope for him to enjoy a quiet decent pint on a local night out, taking the issue firmly into his own hands. He named the chain after a former schoolmaster and pursued a policy of eccentric pub names often linked to the former use of the newly acquired premises. He has never sought to toady up to government but has regularly slated the anti-pub trade policies, both direct and indirect, of both parties. And he is an unashamed Eurosceptic. (There, I didn’t need to mention the mullet.)

So if my court battle in Hatred, Ridicule & Contempt had featured a pub company rather than a newspaper, I’d be in little doubt as to who the captain of industry would be based upon. In the meantime, here’s to a pint of Veto Ale before long.