Given our Glorious leaders recent warming up of an oft mooted idea to introduce Alchohol price fixing I thought I’d revisit a bunch of articles I’ve had sat open for months now, after of course first observing that such price fixing is verbotten by his masters in the EU as numerous bloggers have observed every time the idea is returned to. They’ll just have to resort to increasing tax (already about a third of the cost of a pint) and ever more dire warnings on bottles as they did for smokers. This re-use of the same tactics is something that other commentators have mentioned time and time again, and every time it gets mentioned the list of places where the same processes can be seen grows longer. If any of this was really for health reasons they’d just ban things out right, rather than forcing simple pleasures (like meat) out of the reach of the 99%*. The way that it’s not just what we imbibe or inhale that gets clamped down on but all manner of expression of free thinking association and fun does rather suggest that the state has once more got a bad case of the puritans.
Sticking mainly to beer and drinking which is a subject close to my heart and even closer to my liver, I’ll observe as many other have the way the age limits in supermarkets has crept up? Remember you can legally buy your own booze at 18 but supermarkets now ant you to be 21 or 25 (has anyone seen higher?). Pubs reportedly now balk at selling a drink to people accompanied by children. Even that CAB article I linked to claims you have to be over 14 to have a drink with a meal, which is odd as I’m sure that I had the odd small drink when out at the restaurant with my family at a far more tender age. Has my memory failed me with advancing years, or has that law been changed quietly whilst I wasn’t looking?
That’s the problem really so many of these changes that whittle away at merry England are done on advice or un-remarked changes to minor regulations. Look at the salami slicing that resulted in smoking being banned almost everywhere and they’re working on the few remaining places. Of course given we spend almost £60,000 on booze in a lifetime that’s a fair chunk of tax they want to keep. So get yourself a home brew kit (works out at about 50p a pint after initial costs or less – even with start up costs it’s only £1.50 a pint) and break out the speak easy signs. If we’re making our own booze (and tobacco) that’s less tax they’ll have to stop us enjoying other things, and they’ll be happy as their figures will show fewer people drinking and smoking. At least until they notice and try to work out how to stop us making our own fun, which judging by human history to date would be a task more futile than King Cnuts.
Perhaps 2012 may be the year for the rise of the New Cavaliers, the outfits are better and it’s more fun than puritanism. Save money, fight the state and have fun all from the comfort of a warm seat and a foaming brew. Being as self sufficient as you can has become a radical act, it deprives the state of revenue, and weakens their control on us. Mind be careful if you swap your own brew with friends as the taxman wants his share from barter as well. So answer the call to arms for New Cavaliers, drink up in the struggle against Islamism and consider it may be beer is best.
* Sorry couldn’t resist that.
