Let’s suppose* for a couple of minutes that the health lobbies and the Prime Minister are correct that to deal with problem drinking you need to deal with the fact that alcohol is too cheap. You have two options:
1. An incredibly complicated (and therefore incredibly expensive to administer) system of forcing retailers to charge at least a certain amount per unit of alcohol served. On top of the complexity there are serious competition issues at stake here too. We got rid of things like retail price maintenance and the net book agreement for a reason. You are also ensuring that retailers and manufacturers between them suddenly become more able to earn super profits.
2. You put the duty on alcohol up.
I can see why industry lobbies and those who think that in Utopia everyone works for the state would want 1., but why does a “conservative” think that 1. is the right way to go when 2. is so much simpler and quicker to implement and cheap to administer? I don’t buy all the stuff about supermarkets selling booze at a loss to get people through the door. Maybe occasionally in a “sale” but in general I doubt it’s common. And if this is a problem it shouldn’t be hard to get the big players to stop without major legislation. We already tax booze, changing the rate requires only one line in a Finance Act.
I can’t think of a single advantage of 1..
Minimum alcohol pricing is an utterly stupid idea. We won’t even get into the egalitarian argument about making nice stuff more expensive for poor people. We won’t even get into the fact that it will almost certainly be illegal under the EU treaty. We won’t get into the question of whether it will be manufacturers/importers who will be bound to sell above a certain price or just retailers (would I be able to set up BE Retail Limited to buy booze in bulk at market rates and then fail to sell any on at the statutory price because I am not very good at running a shop?). The amazing thing is that this idea has been floating around for so long and has been taken so seriously by the nation’s leaders.
*anyone who has been to Denmark or France or Poland or seen that chart that shows that UK alcohol consumption is falling may wonder whether price has anything to do with it
I only buy when it’s on offer and Becks hasn’t been on the cheap since before Christmas
I’ve had to make do with Stella this week !!
You are precisely the kind of rowdy binger the government wants to abolish!!!
They get stacked up in the garage and 2 bottles per night max. Cheap promo in pubs that are rowdy can already be subject to conditions so I suspect this was just a sop to street binge drinking. Wetherspoons is hardly bursting and they sell cheap booze !
Exactly. It’s a PR policy for the handwringers and a bullshit one at that.
I am sorry to say that I can see an advantage to minimum pricing – it leaves more expensive booze prices unchanged, so that toffs can carry on swilling claret and champagne without worrying about the cost. I fear that this government has utterly lost the plot – it can scarcely be believed that Cameron used to work in PR.
I see what you’re saying, but “the rich” wouldn’t be worried if a bottle of Bolly went up by a quid or two thanks to a tax increase, either.
True. And it could be slipped in as an austerity budget measure, quite uncontroversially. Making me suspect that this is all a rather artificial row.
Exactly. It’s bollocks!
I paid £4.25 tonight for a bottle of SOL ……… Robbery … I left .. the youngsters were not deterred and are no doubt still there
I paid £11 for two pints of crappy “Belgian” lager last night. And I had to make a fuss to get the barmaid to give me the full pint!
I paid zilch last night for half a bottle of red. Visit relatives more and regard your own malts as a collection.
DAMN Yet again, we agree!
I always reflect upon your kind, supportive comments. They are the best indication I may be wrong.
I have lerned to live with you Melvyn. When I agree I will say so. When not, the same.
I only ask the same from yourself.
I have nothing against you, and I am Bloody sure you have nothing against me. (Yet!)
SORRY BLUE. BUT WE ARE BUILDING A FRIENSHIP HERE…. na JA, at least we are not going to nuke each other ……YET!.
XX 1. An incredibly complicated (and therefore incredibly expensive to administer) system of forcing retailers to charge at least a certain amount per unit of alcohol served. X
Sorry, I do not see why it is complicated.
NOTE! I do NOT agree with it! I just do not see the “complication”.
As above, who is having to charge the minimum price? The manufacturer? The final retailer? Some in-between person? How is it enforced? If it’s the final retailer what’s to stop someone setting up shop as a “wholesaler”? Are we going to send state officials to every corner shop?
Na. O.K. I see your point. I just always assumed that it was the shop that didi it.
It is, after all, the shops that “take or make” on prices.
XX Are we going to send state officials to every corner shop?XX
Sorry Blue, but you are being a bit naive. Of COURSE they will!
Officialy. Whether, like police “pub visits”, it works or not, does not interest the Dictatorship.
The shops only have to THINK that every second “customer” is an informer.
PURE Gestapo/Stassi/KGB tactics.
Agreed.
Booze duty is, viewed subjectively, “far too high” already, but there are plenty of other countries where it is higher still. BTW, it’s the VAT which pubs should be complaining about, not the booze duty itself. Idiots.