Taxation and organ snatching

I’m not going to say anything new at all in this post, which won’t come as much of a shock to anyone who’s read much of what I write here. But recent news has given me an excuse to pull a few things together and to rant about the picture you can see at the top of this post. Mar Carlin is/was a popular comedian and commentator or so I’m informed, certainly quotes attributed to him appear all over the internet attached to random pictures (often of a very similar looking man who I assume is Mr Carlin). This particular … Continue reading

Drinkuary: Raining on the parade

This article was first posted on Drinkuary. Rejoice be glad the beer duty escalator has stopped and beer duty has been dropped by a penny!! Big whoop and it’s not even true despite the headlines. I hate to be the one to rain on the parade but the Daily Mash has it right the Chancellor has bought you for a penny. Let’s have a quick look at the parade before the rain clouds open: “Success for the TaxPayers’ Alliance MashBeerTax campaign with the scrapping of the beer duty escalator and a 1p cut in beer duty” – Tax Payers Alliance … Continue reading

Hiding the decline

Sorry if I’ve misled you but I’m afraid I’m not talking about climate change, but about the equally false problem with alcohol consumption. As Leg Iron and others often observe the puritans and statists only have one play book, everything they do follows the same strategy. So it is with the current panic over drinking, as the protests against alcohol controls rise and look like derailing the project along comes a handy study that shows the problem really is as bad as the puritans claim it’s just we’ve all been “lying about how much we drink”. It seems that according … Continue reading