Plans for a minimum price on alcohol are expected to be ditched in the face of a Cabinet revolt.
David Cameron has insisted on pressing ahead with proposals to outlaw selling alcohol at less than 45p a unit in England and Wales.
But sources say the idea appears ‘dead in the water’, thanks to opposition from ministers. Economists predict the plans could push the average family drinks bill up by almost £100 a year.
One minister said such a rise would be ‘inconceivable’ when cost of living is expected to be an issue at the next election. The minister added: ‘It would be political suicide and it will have to be abandoned.’James Forsyth at The Speccie expands on this.
This is welcome news. The policy always promised to simply drive up the price of drink, penalising all drinkers, while doing little about public drunkenness or binge drinking.
The Mail says that the plan has fallen out of favour because of the government’s new emphasis on the cost of living. It is dawning on everyone that that hugely increasing the price of people’s pleasures at a time of falling real incomes is not a sensible political move.Well, duh!
But the real story is a lot more than a crashingly stupid policy being ditched. What should be newsworthy is why it was even considered in the first place.
Let's boil it down to basics here, what is the point of government if not to act in the interests of the public? Nanny statists regularly talk of the 'duty' of government to 'help' people to make the 'correct' decisions. Personally, I reject that entirely but - even if taken in by it - government has a far greater duty (a real one, not one invented by vested interests) to make life less burdensome for their employers ... that is, us. This is a fundamental reason why we - and generations before us - decided that elected governments were a good thing.
Increasing the cost of living is the polar opposite of what we have historically paid them to do. Their job is to arrange the country so that the way we choose to live is made easier, not more difficult.
Tens of millions of voters consider alcohol to be an enjoyable part of their lives, so any politician who imagines it is their job to 'denormalise' it and raise the cost of living on the say-so of a handful of insane, weapons grade liars should - in a proper world - be sacked on the spot.
Minimum alcohol pricing is an almost universally despised policy, with objections being raised by the left and right of political thinking. The fact that it has reached as far as it has done just goes to show how siren voices have seduced the current political class into a position whereby they are now appalling and unfit for purpose.
'Dead in the water' is a very welcome development, but the idea should never have been allowed past the mental gestation stage before being quietly aborted.
10 comments:
'Dead in the water' is a very welcome development...
And a policy I'd vote for if only we can find a body of water sufficient to accommodate 650 MPs.
I suggest waiting until after George's budget and potential duty hikes before celebrating too much.
'Call Me Dave' is a first class twat. He hasn't grasped the fact that not everyone is eligible for the Bullingdon Club, where the wine consumed is unaffected by a 45p per unit minimum price. And talking about the Bullingdon Club and binge drinking, wasn't there an adage about people in glass houses etc etc? He needs to come down from his ivory tower and walk the streets of the real world for a while. It might just round off his education.
I'm all for that...
He did once walk the streets of the 'real world'. He hugged a hoody and stroked a husky thereby showing where his sense of realism is. In his arse!
This is true. In fact, the Mail article carried this hilarious para:
"Senior figures are now said to be pushing alternative plans to increase duty on high alcohol products and supermarket deals."
They just don't get it, do they? How can banning or placing constraints on supermarket deals not also raise the cost of living? Unless they are implicitly admitting that banning multi-buy discounts will have no effect on the eventual price of alcohol (as has happened in Scotland). In which case, that's a stupid policy too.
And, as you mention, if minimum pricing has merely been employed to facilitate an Overton Window which would allow Osborne to tax us heavily in the budget,. it begs a couple of questions.
Why is this government so spineless that they are unable to stand up to the hysterical health lobby, and why are they paying said health lobby to apply pressure during an economic environment when they should be cutting their unnecessary state funding?
Politicians should be scared of the public rejecting them, not worried by those they give our taxes to. That's how democracy should work, anyway. That they are ignoring the public shows conclusively that they are not fit for purpose and that the system, as it stands, is deeply flawed.
"Economists predict the plans could push the average family drinks bill up by almost £100 a year. One minister said such a rise would be ‘inconceivable’ when cost of living is expected to be an issue at the next election."
Sheeesh. You Brits. Y'jes' don' have that good ol' 'Merican know-how!
Our politicians had the same sort of problem years ago when the Antismokers were pushing for hikes in cigarette taxes. A carton of cigarettes had always been computed into the family's weekly grocery basket and tax hikes on them hiked the inflation/CPI (Consumer Price Index).
Simple solution! Remove the ciggies (or, in your case, the drinkies) from the grocery basket and then you can tax 'em all you want and they won't impact inflation at all!
See how simple it can be when you use the right tools?
:)
Michael Da 'Merican
::note to self: On next visit to UK, bring Harley and Audrey to give lessons on distillin' Kentucky backwoods white lightnin' and on growin' Brooklyn Broadleaf Baccy! ::
(We're always willin' ta help you guys. After all, that's what kids are for, eh?)
::ducking::
;>
MJM
"Tens of millions of voters consider alcohol to be an enjoyable part of their lives, so any politician who imagines it is their job to 'denormalise' it and raise the cost of living on the say-so of a handful of insane, weapons grade liars should - in a proper world - be sacked on the spot."
Shouldn't the same be said about the smoking ban and the hikes in the cost of tobacco? They are driving smokers abroad to legitimately buy their tobacco, perhaps they have realised that hiking drink prices would do the same for drink! Then again, I won't hold my breath, I don't think they have enough brain power to work that one out!
I'm surprised they've not thought of that. Escort, call-girl and ecstasy and cannabis prices aren't included in the CPI, so why include alcohol and tobacco?
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