ThunderDragon Blog

Alistair Darling has already had to start backtracking on the measure announced in the Pre-Budget Report - aka the emergency budget.

The Chancellor was forced to backtrack on a key element of his Pre-Budget Report (PBR) on Wednesday after he admitted that the Treasury had got its sums wrong and raised the duty on spirits by too much.

The proposed duty rise of 8 per cent announced on Monday, part of a package of duty increases designed to offset the cut in VAT from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent, has been halved to 4 per cent to leave the cost to the consumer broadly unchanged.

The Scotch whisky industry had pointed out that the 8 per cent rise would have increased the average bottle of whisky by 29p, whereas in his Commons speech the Chancellor had said that the duty measures “should keep the overall cost to consumers the same this year”. (The Times)

If Darling can’t even get his sums right over such a simple calculation, how can we possibly trust anything he has said in their entire budget?!

This is a pretty ridiculous proposal:

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is to be urged to set a “zero rate” for alcohol for any driver aged under 21, in a report from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD)…

Group chairman and council member Caroline Healy, said: “We feel that young people under the age of 21 should have a zero rate for alcohol if they are driving.

“By their nature, they are inexperienced drivers and not able to tolerate alcohol, and the combination of the two is dangerous.” (The Telegraph)

Why a zero rate just drivers under 21? The issue is driving inexperience, surely? If there is to be a ban on driving after drinking, surely it should apply either (a) for a length of time after passing their test, or (b) to all drivers regardless.

I think that if there is any ban, it should apply on the basis of driving experience - and I say this as a newly-passed driver. It would be an extremely disgusting decision to just ban those who under 21.

The “happy hour” in pubs and bars will no longer exist if the government gets its way. They want to make it illegal for them to have happy hours, offer time-limited free drinks, and “all you can drink” offers, as well as cans and bottles of alcohol and adverts to all carry cigarrette-style health warnings.

I objected to the signs on cigarettes packets, even though I don’t smoke, for the simple reason that those who smoke know the risks and continue to smoke anyway. And the same goes for those of us who drink alcohol. We know the potential bad effects and choose to drink anyway. And the costs that both smokers and drinkers put on the NHS are more than covered by the tax levied from them.

This tightening of the law is in contrast the 24-hour drinking laws Labour passed only a few years ago, which began allowing some places to sell alcohol 24 hours a day.

Politicians spout off about cheap alcohol without actually thinking about it and the way to achieve their aims in the long-term. They want to reduce the amount binge drinkers and drunken brawls, right? So they should persist in creating real 24-hour drinking and enabling people to drink whenever they wish.

It is up to us what, how much, and when we drink. Not the Nanny State.

Why do MPs insist on telling us and companies what we should do with our own money and bodies? Surely is up to companies at what price they sell their produce?

If I wish to buy cheap alcohol and they wish to sell it to me, what business is it of any group of MPs to complain? It is our right as free people and alcoholmarkets supermarkets, pubs and off-licences rights as free-operating business to do as we wish.

The MPs claim that the policing requirements are made far worse by the sale of cheap alcohol, but that’s rubbish. The supposed policing requirement that shift patterns are dictated by drunkenness may have some basis in truth - but this is not caused by alcohol being “cheap”. Pretty much whatever price alcohol was to be allowed to be sold at - as if its current price wasn’t high enough - would not prevent this policing requirement.

These MPs are not considering simple human nature: if alcohol were to be made much much more expensive, there would still be the same drunken brawls, and the same policing requirements. Nothing would change - except it would cost us more. And if it costs us more to do what we already do, the economy is even more screwed than it currently is.

MPs need to wake up and accept that it’s not up to them how much it costs us to buy anything. They already decide how much tax we pay on alcohol, cigarettes and the like. That’s enough power and control without them wanting to dictate the sale price!

The only way to reduce the amount of drunken brawls is to properly liberalise the rules governing the sale of alcohol. Make any establishment licensed to sell alcohol able to sell it at any time they choose. Only when 24-hour drinking becomes a reality can we start to move on towards the much-desired “cafe culture”. As long the time that pubs, clubs and off-licences are permitted to sell alcohol, this will remain a pipe deam.

There’s something wrong with the alcohol watchdog. They have commissioned a report into a beer because it has a name that could be termed “aggressive”: Skull Splitter.

Yet this isn’t a new alcopop or “yoof” drink, but rather an 8.5% ale created more than 20 years ago.

One could understand there being complaints if it was an alcopop or otherwise aimed at the “yoof” market, as it would be seen as encouraging alcohol-fueled violence. But it isn’t. The sort of people who would drink this ale aren’t the sort that would then go out and have a fight in the town centre.

The name “Skull Splitter” - after Thorfinn Hausakluif, the seventh Viking earl of Orkney who had that nickname - may well be slightly aggressive. But that is no reason to ban the sale of any alcoholic beverage, no matter it’s target demographic.

When will we finally slay the idiocy political correctness that reults in this sort of thing?

Via ConservativeHome

Nick Clegg is a party-pooper. And a control-freak one at that.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader said it should be made illegal for shops to sell alcohol at a loss.

Branding big supermarkets “irresponsible” for aggressively promoting alcohol sales, Mr Clegg told the Sheffield Alcohol Conference that many big stores are selling drinks at a price that does not even cover their own costs for duty and VAT. (The Telegraph)

I have one thing to say to that: fuck off you authoritarian cunt*.

It is up the alcoholmarkets supermarkets how they price the alcohol they sell, whether it be cheap or not. The only people who have any right to object to this are their shareholders, because it matters to them how much money the company makes.

If they want to sell me alcohol at a lower price than they pay for it, and if I want to drink it, then that is our own decisions. They know that they are selling it at that price, and I know what drinking too much alcohol could do my body - and so we all make our own informed choices.

It certainly is nothing to do with politicans.

* I apologise if youy are offended by the language, but tough. But it’s how I feel - and it’s true.

It is stated that:

The Government’s attempt to reduce alcohol-related disorder by introducing 24-hour drinking has failed dismally, according to a survey. (The Times)

There’s a few problems with this to start with:

1. It is results concluded from a survey. Surveys aren’t consistent.
2. 24-hour drinking doesn’t exist. Anywhere. It’s just an urban myth.
3. It has been fewer than two years since the law came in to force
4. What is “alcohol-related disorder”? It’s a nice little catch-all phrase.

So alcohol-related disorder hasn’t decreased - says a small bunch of people - in just a couple of years? This doesn’t mean that the law has “failed dismally”. In fact this time last year, the number of “alcohol-related” crimes had declined.

Regular readers will know that I regard the 24-hour drinking law as one of the very few good pieces of legislation that has been passed by this Labour government. Unlike the rest of its legislative programme, it is a law that gives people more freedom and choice.

Why should any licensed pub or off-licence not be able to serve a legal substance to anyone who is legally alloed to purchase it at any time? Anyone who believes in letting people make their own choices - good or bad - and living their own lives how they choose can possibly oppose it on any grounds bar the defence of being nearly as intelligent as two short planks.

The real reason why “alcohol-related disorder” has not fallen is because the law has not been put in to practice. Very few places have been licenced to sell alcohol 24-7. In fact, the ridiculous Sunday Trading Laws ensures that they cannot. And local councils refuse to extend licences… and then come out with these sort of surveys claiming that the 24-drinking laws haven’t helped. They would if they were actually put in to practice.

There is also the very simple reality that nothing changes overnight. Britain is not suddenly going to have a “cafe culture” - even if the law was properly actioned. It will take a decade before any real change comes through, but none will every happen unless and until the ability to purchase alcohol at any time of any day actually exists in reality, and not just in myth.

ASDA are my hero of the day.

In response to the SNPs nanny state proposals to crack down on cheap alcohol, they have declared:

There is nothing to stop companies looking at expanding their home shopping network or opening up depots just south of the border and delivering to homes in Scotland.

So if the SNP continue with their stupid idea, they will build distribution centres in England and sell cheap alcohol to Scottish homes.

Good on them!

Apparently, according to the SNP, “high-strength, low-cost alcohol is not a right.” Erm, why? It is my money that I am spending and my body into which I am poring it. So yes, it is a right for me to be able to buy what I want at the cheapest available price.

The right to buy cheap alcohol from an off-licence or alcoholmarket supermarket is not something that they should be allowed to take away without a fight. I fully support ASDA in seeking to preserve the rights of Scotsmen to drink alcohol at the price they wish to pay for it.

They just can’t leave us alone, can they?

Firstly, the Scottish “Government” wants to raise the age at which alcohol can be legally drunk to 21. Why? Because “we all know that Scotland as a nation has a drink problem and the implications of this are very serious - not least for our health.” So because of the potential of some health problems caused by a few youngsters habitually over-drinking, they are considering banning all under-21s from drinking alcohol completely. And what exactly will stop them crossing the border to England - assuming the Union still exists - and getting drunk there and then coming back? Nothing.

And on the English side of the border the British Government - as we’re not allowed an English one - wants to ban all cigarette vending machines and force cigarettes to be sold from under the counter. Like I said when this idea was originally suggested, banning the sale of cigarettes from vending machines or making them being sold from under the counter won’t prevent under-aged - or just “young” - people from smoking. They have already banned smoking in public places and raised the smoking age from 16 to 18, but now that just isn’t enough for them. It really is just a case of Nanny State bansturbation.

We can’t they just leave us alone? It is our health and our money to do with as we please. Bansturbation won’t help, and will just make the problem worse by increasing the mystique of smoking and cigarettes. The only way to reduce the bad effects of smoking and excessive alcohol consumption is through education about the effects it has on our body. Then leave us to make our own choices, whether they be good or bad.