Greene King is a company well known and loathed by Lewes people for their habit of buying up pubs and then stopping them selling beer from our local brewery, Harveys. Lewes people express dislike by burning effigies on Bonfire Night. Greene King was burned three years ago, around the time my local got taken over and Harveys was taken away.

One pub survived the take over; a particularly good pub (in a town with a good many good pubs) just under the unique second motte of our medieval castle. Due to local resistance, they’re still selling Harveys, which is great, until I read in Private Eye that Greene King were planning to remove Harveys even from there: a pub where four out of every five pints sold are Harveys.

It turns out this hadn’t just made it to the Eye, The Guardian picked it up and John Humphrys interviewed the MD of GK on Today. These articles and more are gathered on the “Hands off our Harveys” Lewes Arms blog.

Today was to have been the last day of Harveys, but there has been a stay of execution while local negotiations continue between GK and local MP Norman Baker. There’s a good few votes in this for him if he can pull this off. I hope he does.