Jonathan Neame, the chief executive of Faversham brewer Shepherd Neame, is urging people to support their local pubs as they struggle to survive in the harsh economic conditions.

He describes the Government’s 2.5 per cent increase on alcohol duty to cover the drop in VAT as a piece of “economic nonsense” and reckons it is the latest salvo aimed at the licensed trade.

Mr Neame said: “If you care about your local and if you care about the family running it, get down there and support them and tell this Government that what they are doing is fundamentally wrong.”

He hit out following Chancellor Alistair Darling’s pre-budget report on Monday, aimed at stimulating the economy.

But Mr Neame branded the report “vindictive, futile and deeply ignorant”, adding that it appeared as though the Government was trying to wipe out the industry.

About one million people are employed nationally in the licensed trade and Shepherd Neame itself has 370 pubs.

“The British pub, once the cherished heart of its community, has been brought to its knees by multilayered petty bureaucracy and excessive taxation,” Mr Neame said.

“Thirty-six pubs close each week, a figure that is set to accelerate.

“Most people in the country want to have a strong, vibrant pub near them, characterised by great beer, good food and wine and, crucially, good ambience and fellowship.

“Such pubs exist, but they are struggling against a Government that has come to regard pubs as a tax-collection point on one hand and a social problem on the other.

He continued: “If the anti-alcohol arguments and punitive taxes prevail, then it will be the good guys — the community pubs, the small brewers, the local cider makers, small wine makers — and not the irresponsible retailers that are most at risk.

“And if we lose them, we will have experienced an act of gross cultural vandalism.”