A GRIM survey of our region's pub trade today shows more than half of licensees actually expect to be put out of business before long by rising beer prices and bootleg booze.

But while their problems are actually much more complex - also involving such pressures as rent increases, changing lifestyles among their customers and the extra costs of longer opening hours - very much at the root of this threat lies government indifference.

For, while landlords may do all they can to make their pubs more attractive and available, what they cannot compete with at all is the unbridled explosion of bootleg drink and tobacco in this country.

And there is increasing evidence that organised crime has taken over from the casual operators who, turning their surplus "for personal consumption only" imports into cash, have also been leaching lakes of minimal-duty Europe-bought alcohol into the home market - all at the expense of jobs and business in the drinks trade here.

But what is the government doing to prevent this?

It may stage occasional, well-publicised crackdowns but this seems cosmetic - when today we hear from Customs and Excise investigators leading the fight against the bootleggers that 1,200 of them may be axed over the next three years because of government spending reviews.

Yet is not the real way to beat the bootleggers to make it simply uneconomic for people to go to Europe and bring van and container loads of low-price beer, spirits, wine and tobacco back into the country?

The Government must reduce the duty on these products in Britain, so that prices are much more in line with those on the continent.

It is, after all, losing tens of millions of pounds in revenue to the Exchequer while jobs and businesses in this country are going to the wall.

Where is the sense or justice in that?

Crank down the duty, Mr Chancellor, save our pubs and see off the bootleggers at a stroke.

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