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

A- for George

Many people far more knowledgeable than me have commented on the recent downgrading of the UK’s credit rating from AAA to AA1 – this however is not going to stop me adding my tuppenth worth. It’s just one agency but it is a warning shot across the bows the policy being pursued by the current Government isn’t working, we’re borrowing more and there’s no growth- this is not how you reduce dept. The only way anyone reduces debt is to spend less and stop borrowing, apparently this does in fact also apply to Governments despite what various pundits have claimed … Continue reading