Acting under cover of darkness, shock troops from the PFLB undertook a daring raid in which the beer barrels blocking off the car park were moved to barricade the doors of the pub.

In an anonymous message phoned through to www.buckden.org the anarcho-syndicalist Provisional wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Buck Inn (PFLB) claimed responsibility.

The spokesman said “Our fight is for the people of Buckden who have been without a pub in the village now for nine months, and who are getting very thirsty. We call on the capitalist running dogs who own the property and their lackeys, Fleurets, to act now to get the pub reopened. If they can’t, then they should sell the property to someone who can.  We are sick of the cynical commercial exploitation of our heritage by absentee landlords – who have a total disregard for the social and community impact of their actions (or lack of) on the villages of the Upper Dale.”

The PFLB  spokesman, went on  to say “This is only the beginning; we will not rest until our struggle is won – if this action does not produce the result we are looking for, we will move to take more  and more radical steps”. (Our undercover sources in the upper dale advise us that this threat should not be taken lightly. It is understood that a series of direct actions is already planned, which is thought to include turning the tables round and possibly even unhooking the hanging baskets from outside the pub). In a final chilling comment, the PFLB spokesman said “We are desperate men - we will stop at nothing - apart from anything else, we could do with a pint.”