Minimum pricing raises its ugly head - again

I wrote this for the CAMRA column of our local paper, the Southport Visiter. It will appear next week:

The question of a minimum price per unit of alcohol is in the news again after the Supreme Court rejected the Scottish Whisky Association's challenge to the Scottish government's decision to impose the policy. Locally, Sefton Central MP Bill Esterson has expressed his support for a 50p per unit minimum price (Visiter 9.11.17). While CAMRA encourages responsible drinking - it is better to remember what you have been drinking and why you enjoyed it - it opposes such a policy.

Minimum pricing is a form of rationing based on ability to pay and, viewed that way, the inequity of such a measure immediately becomes apparent. Very few prices in pubs, clubs and other licensed premises would be affected, so it would mostly hit drinkers who, unable to afford pub prices, instead pay less in supermarkets. Whether they intend to or not, the advocates of minimum pricing are implying that alcohol misuse is largely the province of people on low incomes.

I wrote in September [in the Southport Visiter] that studies across Europe have shown that, as the price of legitimate alcohol goes up, the demand for smuggled and counterfeit alcohol also increases. One unplanned result is an expanding black market that deprives the Treasury of income. Booze cruises, anyone?

Mr Esterson says that “minimum pricing for alcohol works”. I don't understand this assertion, seeing that no country has actually tried it - Scotland has yet to implement the measure. The claim that a £3bn boost to the economy would result from declining consumption must be treated with caution: does it, for example, include the costs of job losses caused by the projected fall in sales? It certainly takes no account of the effects of making unaffordable a small pleasure for people on very restricted incomes.

Minimum pricing is a quick way of ticking the box 'dealing with alcohol misuse'; it does little to address the problem and merely penalises those among us with least money. However, it satisfies the political desire to be seen to 'do something'. Education about the dangers of alcohol misuse would be more effective, but as the cost would be far higher, the cheap and cheerless option, ineffectual and riddled with unintended consequences, is chosen instead.

Scottish minimum pricing ruled lawful

In 2012, the Scottish Parliament voted for minimum pricing of alcohol, but implementation was delayed when the Scotch whisky industry launched a legal challenge, claiming the plans breached European Law. The Court of Session in Edinburgh has dismissed the challenge which means that, unless the drinks industry appeals to the Supreme Court in London, 50p per unit can be implemented north of the border. The price of a bottle of spirits is likely to exceed £14.

The Scotch Whisky Association's argument was that the policy is a restriction on trade and thus contrary to EU law. The opposing argument is all about alcohol misuse, asserting that minimum pricing would help address Scotland's "unhealthy relationship with drink".

My reasons for opposing minimum pricing are not personal; as I'm a beer drinker in pubs, it wouldn't make much difference to me. I previously explained my reasons here just before the 2013 CAMRA national AGM in Norwich, where a motion had been tabled to end the campaign's support of the policy. Pleasingly, the motion was passed, much to the chagrin of the top table.

Not everyone who buys cheap alcohol is a binge drinker - many simply don’t have much money, so minimum pricing will mainly affect the poorest in society. It is in effect a poll tax levied equally on every drinker, without reference to their ability to pay. The better-off and rich will still be able to buy as much drink as they like, unhampered by nanny state interference. I have never heard anyone assert that alcohol misuse is confined to the poorest in society; this law affects certain strands in society disproportionately and is therefore inherently unjust. Is this an unintended consequence? I don't think so.

I'm hoping the Scottish drinks industry does appeal further, even though I don't particularly share its motives.

Scotland - up before the beak

I've written about various aspects of minimum pricing for alcohol many times before, including the Scottish Parliament's passing of a law enacting it in Scotland. Specifically, three years ago I wrote "Drink lands Scotland in court", after the Scottish Whisky Association made a formal complaint about the minimum pricing proposals to the European Commission. Following this battle has been rather like watching an unavoidable car crash in slow motion, with an entirely unsurprising result

The European Court of Justice advocate general Yves Bot said the move risked infringing EU rules on free trade, explaining that could only be legal if it could be shown no other mechanism could deliver the desired public health benefits, such as taxation. This latter point, which allows that the policy could be legal if no other measures can achieve its declared aims, means that this is not the final word. The SNP government is pinning its hopes on this, supported by Tennent Caledonian, renowned for their utterly mediocre beers; their managing director said: "Minimum pricing is an important step in addressing the very specific but damaging problem of strong, cheap alcohol. It would be a lost opportunity for Scotland if it were not introduced."

In reality, it would be a lost opportunity for Tennent Caledonian, whose profits would be boosted by a reduction in the availability of cheaper booze. Two thoughts occur to me: if Tennent Caledonian are genuinely concerned about the health risks of booze, why are they in the business at all? After all, dearer booze isn't safer in health terms. If - more realistically - they have leapt onto the health bandwagon for purely protectionist reasons, they could protect their business by brewing better beer. Of course, there's no chance that will ever happen, but I loathe their opportunistic dishonesty.

Politicians like simple proposals like this because they are cheap and give the impression of taking action while actually doing nothing about the problems they are meant to address. I also dislike the fact that it will mainly hit people without much money, and certainly won't affect the better off. The SNP government can take some solace in the fact that the statement by the advocate general is only an opinion, but it would take compelling additional evidence and arguments for the European court not to endorse it. This is a serious setback to the policy, but it's going to take some time before we hear the final word.

The Pub Curmudgeon wrote about this news from a different angle yesterday.

MPs take the soft option

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Alcohol Misuse has come out with a document calling on all political parties to commit themselves to 10 measures to minimise alcohol-related harm in the UK. Such documents have no formal standing and merely represent the views of the members of the group, which itself has no formal status, but is simply a collection of politicians who have an interest in the topic. Alcohol Concern, the fake, publicly-funded charity, also has its name prominently displayed on the cover. This publication is intended to influence the content of party manifestos for next year's general election.

I've reproduced the exact wording of the recommendations below but there is nothing new here, particularly the calls for minimum pricing, strengthening regulation of alcohol marketing, health warnings on labels, and lowering the drink-driving limit (the links are to older posts on the subject concerned).

As I've previously written on some of the individual recommendations, I won't cover old ground again, but it is worth noting that it has just been announced that drink-drive deaths are at their lowest since records began, under-age drinking is also at its lowest since records began and alcohol consumption in general is at its lowest level for decades. So how do those facts, based on government statements, sit with the report's assertion that "alcohol abuse has become a national pandemic and needs to be treated as such"? It's sounding more like a bunch of busybodies with an agenda rather than a sober assessment of the situation. Further evidence of this is in the introduction which cheerily says: "We want to be clear that this manifesto is not designed to end or curtail people’s enjoyment of alcohol". When they have to make that point clear, I tend to assume that that is precisely what they have in mind.

With MPs paid £66,000 per year, and ministers more than £100,000, I do wonder why our legislators are wasting time doing no more than rehashing familiar recommendations that have previously been published many times over the years. Although, to be fair, it often seems that repeating themselves is the stock-in-trade of our MPs.

In contrast, just 11 MPs (1.7% of the total) bothered to turn up on 17 July for a debate about the provision of education for children with autism. Such a debate would require concentration, knowledge and thought, whereas cobbling together a report consisting of ideas that have frequently been regurgitated in the past is probably a fairly effortless way of passing time while apparently doing something worthy. I wonder whether the legislative busybodies adjourned to one of the many subsidised Palace of Westminster bars when their onerous task was complete?

The recommendations are:

1. Make reducing alcohol harms the responsibility of a single government minister with clear accountability. 
2. Introduce a minimum unit price for alcoholic drinks. 
3. Introduce public health as a fifth licensing objective, enabling local authorities to make licensing decisions based on local population health need and the density of existing outlets. 
4. Strengthen regulation of alcohol marketing to protect children and young people. 
5. Increase funding for treatment and raise access levels from 6% to 15% of problem drinkers. 
6. Commissioners should prioritise the delivery of identification and brief advice identification and brief advice should be delivered in a wide range of different settings including health care, involving GPs routinely asking questions, and in-workplace programmes. 
7. Include a health warning on all alcohol labels and deliver a government-funded national public awareness campaign on alcohol-related health issues. 
8. For all social workers, midwives and healthcare professionals, introduce mandatory training on parental substance misuse, foetal alcohol syndrome disorder and alcohol-related domestic violence. 
9. Reduce the blood alcohol limit for driving in England and Wales to 50mg/100ml, starting with drivers under the age of 21. 
10. Introduce the widespread use of sobriety orders to break the cycle of alcohol and crime, antisocial behaviour and domestic violence.

"Tax fags, not booze" ~ survey

Disappointing news for that dwindling band who want to see the smoking ban relaxed. Market research company mruk polled a representative sample of 1,058 adults from across the UK asking them to imagine they were the Chancellor of the Exchequer and needed to help the NHS save money. The results were:

• 37% wanted increased cigarette tax.
• 14% wanted unhealthy, high fat food to be taxed.
• 6% prioritised alcohol pricing.

Rachel Cope, head of mruk research, commented “Whilst almost everyone recognises the impact of smoking on health, that’s not the case with moderate alcohol consumption. If there’s no perceived impact on health then people see minimum pricing as just another tax.” Personally, I consider £7.98* for a packet of 20 to be excessive, especially as £6.17 of that is tax. With cigarette smuggling on the increase, it's stupid to keep on putting up the tax if by doing so you get ordinary people accustomed to breaking the law.

While this survey was not specifically about the smoking ban, it suggests to me that liberalisation of the ban would not be popular, a view supported by a recent survey by YouGov of more than 1,000 Scottish adults which found that 78% would be in favour of extending the smoking ban to include play areas, such as parks and sports facilities, with only 11% against it. My own view, as I've stated before, is that I don't want changes to the ban either way; I find I'm not much affected by cigarette smoke in the open air. However, the precedent has been set in Wales with many areas banning smoking in play parks.

Perhaps the fact that 94% didn't support minimum pricing for alcohol, despite the relentless propaganda of the anti-alcohol brigade, is evidence that the common sense of the British people is greater than we might assume from media reporting. That alone must be a good thing.

* Figures from the Tobacco Manufacturers Association.

Snouts in the beer trough

In March 2009, I wrote: "While ordinary pub-goers have to pay excessive amounts of tax in pubs - for our own good of course - it’s always our round when our politicians hit the ale", referring to the subsidy of £5.5 million of taxpayers’ money received by the House of Commons Refreshment Department in the 2007/8 financial year.

Well, four years and various expenses scandals later, I regret to report they're still at it. The subsidy for the House of Commons bars and restaurants was £4.9 million in the 2012/23 year; the equivalent figure for the Lords was £2.3 million, making a total of £7.2 million.

These are the same people who brought you the alcohol tax escalator and wanted to bring in minimum pricing because alcohol available to the plebs is too cheap and they can't be trusted to behave themselves or look after their health unless the nanny state directs their actions. And yet the arrest of Eric Joyce, MP for Falkirk, earlier this year after he headbutted a Tory MP in a parliamentary bar - his second such arrest and merely the latest in a series of incidents involving politicians - shows that the honourable members are not themselves capable of responsible drinking. After this incident, I tried to set up an e-petition to the government stating that, as they had removed bars from all public sector workplaces over the last few decades, the Palace of Westminster, as a public sector workplace, should be alcohol-free too. It was rejected.

Their utter hypocrisy is really quite staggering.

Minimum pricing plans abandoned

So it looks as though the Government is ditching the idea of a minimum price per alcohol unit in England. I have discussed this several times before (such as here) and don't want to go over old ground again. CAMRA voted to abandon support for minimum pricing at its AGM in April this year, and some members wrote irate letters to the CAMRA newspaper deploring the decision. I hope those members will now reflect on the fact that the Government has now turned away from this policy too, leaving them in alliance with the anti-alcohol campaigners - a strange position for any CAMRA member to be in. It's interesting that, at the same time, the Government has announced that the proposal to put cigarettes in plain packaging will be deferred until the success of a similar policy in Australia can be assessed. Despite their denials, this looks like a U-turn to me, because existing smokers are unlikely to take much notice, and it will be years before the deterrent effect of plain packaging on potential smokers will become apparent.

Whatever their rationalisations, I believe that there is one main reason for both of these U-turns: the Tories are worried that they are increasingly looking like the party that stamps on ordinary people's pleasures. Yes, even they are realising that it is not good for their image, and re-election chances, to come across too much like a bunch of hectoring nannies. While I have no truck with UKIP, the Tories must have noticed that the growing popularity of Nigel Farage's party hasn't been damaged by the frequent sight of him unashamedly drinking a pint and actually looking as though he's enjoying it; a stark contrast to the disapproving glares of the minimum price advocates with their apocalyptic stories of imminent social and financial collapse caused by booze, even though in reality alcohol consumption has been in decline for many years. I wouldn't be surprised if Ken Clarke, the only credible bon viveur amongst prominent Tories, were encouraged to be seen in public once again clutching pint and cigar.

I doubt we've seen the last of minimum pricing ever, but let's hope it's been kicked into the long grass for a good while.

Minimum pricing motion

Motion 19 to the CAMRA national AGM in Norwich next month reads:

This conference agrees that CAMRA is on the wrong side of the argument over minimum pricing. It instructs the National Executive to withdraw its support for this measure with immediate effect.
Proposed: Peter Alexander.
Seconded: Graham Donning.

I have written about my opposition to minimum pricing on ReARM many times and in fact had prepared my own AGM motion opposing it. Unfortunately, because I was unwell, I failed to submit it in time, so I'm glad there will be chance to vote, and perhaps to speak, on this issue next month.

In brief, my reasons are that I consider that the phrase "responsible drinking" means that the drinker is responsible both for the quantity that he or she consumes and his or her behaviour. As responsibility rests with the person, not the product, I oppose both excessive taxation and minimum prices on the product, especially as both measures disproportionately affect the people with least money, while having a diminishing impact the higher you go up the income scale. I don't believe that anti-social behaviour and binge drinking are the preserve of the poor alone.

CAMRA's support for minimum pricing is based on the mistaken view that raising supermarket prices will encourage more people to go to the pub, but pub-going has declined, not because of the cheapness of supermarkets, but because of the massive increases in pub prices in recent years caused by the beer duty escalator and pub company greed. Higher supermarket prices will not reduce pub prices by a single penny; they will just make home drinking dearer, and to assume that will benefit pubs is wishful thinking.

It should be an interesting debate.

The hopeful and the blind

As you've probably heard by now, the Chancellor yesterday scrapped the 3p rise in beer duty due in April and has instead cut it by a penny. He has ended the beer duty escalator (inflation + 2%), but has kept it for wine, cider, spirits and cigarettes. 

CAMRA has reacted to this news with elation, claiming that "pubs won’t need to increase their prices this year." Within half an hour of this assertion going on the CAMRA website, a licensee asked me why pubs don't need to increase prices this year, with fuel prices, rents, raw materials and pretty well all other costs rising at above inflation. I didn't know, so I asked CAMRA, and received this very prompt and courteous reply from the Campaigns Manager, Emily Ryans:

"We believe it's reasonable to expect that pubs won't increase their prices this year following yesterday's news that the beer duty escalator has been scrapped and beer duty has been cut by 1p.  A 1p cut per pint equates to a 2% reduction - with inflation running at around 3% we think the 2% cut will be sufficient to avoid pub price increases. Of course other factors affecting prices such as fuel and raw materials feed into the level of inflation. In addition, many pub companies and brewers raised their prices just a few months ago to take rising costs of raw materials, rents and staffing etc into account so we would hope that they will not react to this news by raising prices further. We were heartened that several pub companies including Heineken and Enterprise Inns  have already committed to pass this duty saving on to their consumers and we'll be encouraging others to do the same."

It sounds rather optimistic to me, but I do hope they're right. And, to be fair, CAMRA has every right to be pleased with the success of their campaigning on this issue. So let's see the reaction of the killjoys:

The chief executive of Alcohol Concern said: "Too many people are dying and suffering from crime and poor health because of alcohol misuse. Sadly there was nothing in this budget which shows a real and practical commitment from the Government to tackling this. If we’re to get to grips with this problem, and we must, the Government has to take the lead and target strong, cheap, alcohol –  the kind drunk by the most vulnerable in our society, the young and the very heavy drinker. Although the Chancellor said the Government will look at plans to tackle cheap, strong booze we cannot delay, we urgently need to see a firm commitment to introduce a minimum unit price, a measure which all the evidence shows will save lives and cut crime.” 

All the evidence shows no such thing. The findings I've seen suggest that minimum pricing could save X number of lives, could cut crime and disorder by X% and could save £X billion pounds in policing and NHS costs. "Could" is not a term that suggests scientific rigour, and it just makes this so-called research little more than informed guess work. With sales of alcohol inexorably moving from the pub to the supermarket, i.e. from public places into the home, all we are doing is moving problem drinking out of sight, which I genuinely believe politicians are quite happy about, seeing that they are in the business of smoke and mirrors. This effect seems blindingly obvious to me, but as the old saying goes, there are none so blind as those who will not see; so fixated are the killjoys on their own solutions that they are unable to contemplate the unintended consequence that they aren't solving the problem; they're just concealing it.

Ultimately, while yesterday's budget announcements are welcome, they are not a solution to the difficulties facing the pub industry. All they have done is prevent a bad situation becoming worse, but if I'm honest, even that's rather better than I expected.

Minimum pricing to be dropped?

I've just noticed on the BBC News website that minimum pricing on alcohol in England and Wales may be dropped because Conservative ministers can't agree about the proposals. Apparently several Cabinet ministers, including Theresa May, Michael Gove and Andrew Lansley, don't agree with the plans to introduce a price of 45p per unit and a ban on multi-buy promotions. 

The BBC's health correspondent writes: "Research has suggested a 45p minimum could reduce drinking by 4.3%, potentially saving 2,000 lives within a decade. This was why the idea had such strong backing from the medical profession. But using price is a crude tool. As well as hitting problem drinkers, it would also influence those who consume alcohol in moderation. Dropping the plan may win ministers votes, but it won't make them popular with doctors." It's my underlining in the quote, because research that can predict a possible outcome is not scientific: it's little more than informed guesswork to a predetermined solution. 

The phrase "a crude tool" is right: it will disproportionately affect people on lower incomes, while providing merely a diminishing inconvenience the further up the income scale you go. Is it only poorer people whose binge drinking is a problem? Actually, to this shower in government, the answer is probably "yes". The British state has for hundreds of years mistrusted ordinary people and drink, and moral panics are nothing new. For example, during the First World War, the government introduced many measures to tackle drinking, including banning the purchase of alcohol for someone else, and drastically curtailing licensing hours.

If they do drop minimum pricing, I suspect the reasons may include an unwillingness to embark upon the time, expense and effort of fighting challenges under EU law, and a reluctance to introduce a measure that will doubtless be depicted as yet another Tory attack upon the poor.

Treating us like kids

As I'm sure you will have heard by now, Theresa May has announced a 10-week consultation on the proposal of a minimum price for alcohol of 45p per unit in England and Wales. Multi-buy promotions may also be banned. I have written on this subject several times previously and really can't be bothered going over old ground, but if you didn't see my words of wisdom first time round, click here to see my previous posts.

The Home Office says: "We are consulting on these measures because too many of our high streets and town centres have become no-go areas on a Friday and Saturday night." Do these people ever actually go out, or do they base their views on TV programmes that, naturally, only show the worst behaviour? After all, a programme that just showed people going to the pub, having a few pints, a laugh and a chat and then going home peacefully wouldn't make very interesting viewing. I do go out to pubs several times a week, including weekends, to my town centre and to others, such as Liverpool. It would be a lie to say I have never seen any trouble, but the last incident I witnessed is so long ago that I can't remember what it was.

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore of the Alcohol Health Alliance claimed that, "The evidence shows us that heavy drinkers and young drinkers are more affected by higher alcohol prices than moderate drinkers." Well, if you're talking about alcoholics, that's correct: they will spend even less on food and other essentials like heating and housing costs. They'll be affected all right, but they won't drink less. My opinion is based on having dealt with alcoholics through my job and having known a few personally. As for young binge drinkers, I doubt it would make much difference at all; only the onset of kids and mortgages will do that.

I'll just quote David Cameron, and for once I agree with him: "The big society is about changing the way our country is run. No more of a government treating everyone like children who are incapable of taking their own decisions. Instead, let's treat adults like adults and give them more responsibility over their lives."* 

Yes, David, let's.

* The Observer 12 February 2011 - the full article is here.

Drink lands Scotland in court

In a move that will surprise few people who have followed the SNP's minimum price plans, three separate organisations are challenging the proposals in court, and at the same time one of them has lodged a complaint in Europe. According to an article in the Publican's Morning Advertiser, "Three trade bodies - the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA), the European Spirits Organisation and wine association Comite Vins - have made the petition to the Scottish Court of Session, arguing that minimum pricing could break EU regulations on competition. They said that the Scottish Government has exceeded its powers by pursuing the measure.

"The SWA said it feared ‘copycat’ action by other European countries if Scotland succeeds in introducing minimum pricing, costing the Scotch whisky industry £500m in exports. Separately, the SWA has made a formal complaint about the Scottish proposals to the European Commission (EC).

"The trade group argued that minimum pricing restricts trade between member states. It also said that because wine is defined as an agricultural product, setting a minimum price is contrary to EC regulations."

The SNP is, predictably, thoroughly unrepentant and intends to squander taxpayers' money defending a completely misguided plan that will not achieve its stated aims and instead will only penalise the ordinary drinker. I've said before that politicians like simple proposals like this because they give the impression of action without doing much at all about the problems they are meant to address. The cheap option is now going to become a lot more costly as the legal profession prepares to clean up, which it will whichever way the judgment goes; but, as we know, politicians always prefer spending other people's money to losing face. I hope it's only Scottish taxpayers and not the rest of us who get stung for the bill: after all, they voted this shower in.

Poll taxing the beer drinker

At the CAMRA national AGM in Cardiff in 2008, I went to a discussion group about the neo-prohibitionists.  Who?  The people who, flushed by their success in getting the smoking ban through, then decided to turn their attention to alcohol.  They wish to contain and restrict the sale of alcohol so that consumption is brought down to a level they approve of, which in some cases is nil.  Why do they wish to do this?  They give several reasons:

• Our health.
• Cost to the NHS of treating alcohol-related disorders.
• Public disorder.
• Cost of policing.
• Effect on the economy of sick days lost to drinking.
• Cost of benefits paid to alcoholics not well enough to work.

These are considerations that cannot be ignored, so what imaginative approaches are being brought to bear on the problem?  Er, none at all.  The only tools the government is prepared to use are tax, pricing and fines.

Tax:  British beer tax accounts for 40% of the entire European beer tax bill, even though the UK accounts for only 13% of EU beer consumption (EU figures).  Our beer is taxed on an escalator whereby the tax increases at more than inflation, which is a particular burden when most people are getting below inflation pay rises, pay freezes or even cuts.  Plus all those who are losing their jobs.

Minimum pricing:  Scotland is trying to bring in a minimum price per unit, and the Coalition is looking at something similar.  There may be problems with EU law, but they are looking for ways around that.

The trouble with both tax and minimum pricing as methods of control is that they are in effect a poll tax, whereby everyone pays the same no matter what income you have.  On other words, the poorer you are, the harder these measures will hit.  Conversely, they will make little difference to the pleasures of the rich.  There seems no logic to me in bringing measures that have less effect on you the more money you have.  Our Cabinet consists mostly of millionaires whose pleasures - and whose children’s pleasures - will not be restricted by the price rationing that they are imposing upon everyone else.  But the double standards don’t end there.  Several prominent politicians, including the Prime Minister and the Mayor of London, belonged to the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University.  This is a dining club in which members not only go out for meals, but they also get very drunk and smash up the restaurant.  The damage is always covered by daddy’s cheque book, but even so, they often have to make their bookings under an assumed name, as many restaurants don’t welcome the ensuing mayhem.  The message that sends to me is that rich hooliganism is fine, but if your parents don't have a big cheque book, we'll come down on you like a ton of bricks.  The Bullingdon Club is merely the best known - not the only - example of such wealthy misbehaviour, but in my book, no hooliganism is acceptable.

Fines:  mostly imposed on licensees for breaches of law relating under-age drinking.  Under age drinkers used to go into a pub and behave themselves because they knew that if they didn’t, they’d draw attention to themselves and get thrown out.  So now they get cheap supermarket booze and drink at each other’s homes or in the park, and it’s not ordinary beer:  it’s strong cider, lager or cheap vodka.  And in an unsupervised environment, they don’t learn how to behave when drinking.  The consequence is that binge drinking develops at an early age without social controls, resulting in bad behaviour.  So the rigid enforcement of a law to prevent under age drinking has probably had quite the opposite effect.

Contrary to the propaganda, alcohol consumption in the UK has been in slow decline for a long time.  By concentrating on price, tax and fines to deal with the problems that undoubtedly do exist, the government has gone for the cheap, easy option.  Education about alcohol would be more effective, but would cost a lot more money.

As for disorder, we all know that there are problems with people falling out of pubs, throwing up in the streets, creating noise and getting into fights.  Or do we?  I’m a regular pub goer, but it’s so long since I’ve seen bad behaviour that I can’t remember when the last time was.  In Southport at weekends, the number of people drinking in pubs, social clubs, night clubs, bars, restaurants and hotels will be in the thousands at least, if not more.  Nearly all of these people behave themselves, and the troublemakers are a tiny percentage.  I don’t dismiss the impact they have, but the measures the government favours punishes the many for the bad behaviour of the few, while at the same time leaving wealthier people largely untouched.  This is inherently unfair, and it is having a bad impact upon pubs now:  pubs are closing down every week as more and more people find they cannot afford the prices and as a result either cut back or stop going altogether.

What about the real alcoholics?  Will price rationing deter them?  I’ve known a few over the years and, in the worse stages, they ignore everything in their lives except drink.  They don’t eat properly, don’t pay their bills, and don’t replace their clothes, which can end up in tatters:  most of their money goes on drink.  If the price goes up, they will simply cut back even further on everything else.  Price rationing will not do anything except make their situation even worse.

You may have noticed the recent heightening of the government's rhetoric and the intense media attention on Britain's "problem drinking culture".  This is simply to smooth the way for their only solution:  further rises in the next budget in March.  MPs love to say they support the pub, but most of them won't challenge the government's tax policies that are closing pubs week after week.  They won't risk the accusation of being soft on crime and disorder, so despite the damage that they know tax rises are doing to the pub industry, they'll still nod them through and perpetuate a failing policy.  Government policy on alcohol misuse is a mess that will resolve nothing.  Stern ministerial words may win rounds of applause at conferences and on BBC Question Time, but won’t amount to much, except to deprive the majority of ordinary, well-behaved drinkers of a simple, sociable pleasure.

Government to encourage smuggling

So, David Cameron wants to raise alcohol prices, does he?  I'm really fed up writing about this, so I'll just point out that:

1. UK alcohol is now so dear that HMRC lose £800 million because of smuggling (government estimate).
2. British beer tax accounts for 40% of the entire European beer tax bill, even though the UK accounts for only 13% of EU beer consumption (EU figures).

Cameron's preferred policy will only make both those situations worse.  I've argued before (most recently on 19 December) that further increases in alcohol duty will raise no significant revenue and may be counter-productive.  That is uniquely a lose-lose-lose situation, but you can't stop a politician once he's got the nanny state bit between his teeth:  reason and common sense are left far behind.

Mr Cameron:  how about dealing with the economy and getting people back to work?  Stopping the erosion of ordinary voters' spending power so they can put money into the economy?  Plugging the loopholes whereby rich corporations and individuals collectively dodge £95,000 million tax every year?

No, when your policies are bankrupt, like the country you're supposed to be running, just go after the drinkers.  That'll sort it out.

Even zealots have their price

Responsible marketing of cheap booze in Tesco earlier today

Strolling up Mount Pleasant in Liverpool today, I noticed this double window display of cut-price booze in the Tesco Express window.  Then I thought of Tesco's "commitment" to a minimum price for alcohol, a commitment which consisted of doing nothing except issuing grand statements and waiting for the government to introduce a minimum price.  Don Shenker, until recently Chief Executive of fake charity Alcohol Concern, said: “We welcome this announcement [in relation to minimum pricing] from Tesco and see these measures as important first steps towards more responsible supermarket alcohol sales."

We now have minimum pricing of sorts but it's still business as usual for cheap booze at Tesco's.  When Alcohol Concern refused to support the government's Responsibility Deal Alcohol Network, Mr Shenker said:  "By allowing the drinks industry to propose such half-hearted pledges on alcohol with no teeth, this government has clearly shown that when it comes to public health its first priority is to side with big business and protect private profit.”

Funny - when I looked into that Tesco window and remembered how Mr Shenker welcomed Tesco's initiatives (such as they were) on alcohol, I thought exactly the same thing about Alcohol Concern.

By the way, Don Shenker left Alcohol Concern recently when, due to a cut in government funding, his job became part-time.  Clearly a part-time percentage of his former £70,000+ salary (largely paid by the tax payer) wasn't enough to live on.  What was he spending it all on?  Not champagne, I hope.

"Why don't they believe us?" whinges minister

Public health minister Anne Milton has bemoaned the fact that, despite government warnings, some people still continue to drink above the level they say is good for us.  She also said that, despite the incidence of problem drinking, there was not currently any evidence available to justify altering the recommended safe limits.  By alter she presumably means lower - no, Anne, you don't fiddle figures that lack credibility at their current levels.  She recognises that many people simply don't believe government warnings.  I wonder why that is Anne?  Perhaps it's because politicians sometimes lie to us.  We remember the weapons of mass destruction and the dodgy dossier, which politicians of all parties fell for, but, strangely enough, rather less of the general public did; or more recently, Theresa May's conference lies about the cat and the immigrant.  On top of that, the simple truth is that most drinkers can't believe the recommended alcohol levels, especially since one of those involved in setting them admitted a couple of years ago that the figures were more or less plucked out of the air - more deceit.

In one respect, she shows some sense of reality by recognising that a minimum price for alcohol - favoured by her Labour shadow, Diane Abbott (the Lefty who sent her kid to private school) and the nanny statist Scottish National Party - is probably illegal, but steers straight back on track with her support for manipulating the market by the use of alcohol duty, such as the recent increase in duty on strong beer and reduction on weak beer that I discussed here.  I can think we can therefore safely assume that the beer tax escalator is likely to stay.

But undeniable hypocrisy comes into play when she looks at her colleagues.  She acknowledges that MPs were "susceptible" to "risky behaviour" like excessive drinking because of their anti-social hours and the time they spend away from family, but says she does not believe that any of Parliament's many bars should be shut down in a bid to make them more sober.  And no mention at all of ending the taxpayers' subsidy of the prices they pay in those bars.  With such double standards, Anne, is it really surprising that we find believing you and your mates so hard?

The original article is here.

Minimum pricing for Scotland a step closer

Now that the SNP has won an overall majority in the Scottish parliament, one of its first priorities seems to be the minimum alcohol price proposal that was defeated by opposition parties when the parliament was hung.  There is a fairly wide-held view that such a proposal may be illegal under EU law; the Law Society of Scotland came out with this opinion earlier this year in March - you can read what they say here.  I personally would be wary of arguing a legal point with the Law Society, but the SNP is clearly made of sterner stuff than I am, and states that government lawyers have confirmed that the Scottish parliament does have the power.

A legal opinion is, of course, just an opinion, although one would hope an exceptionally well-informed one, but it's worth bearing in mind that all serious court cases have a lawyer on each side, and in every instance one out of the two will lose.  Remember also that Tony Bliar managed eventually to get a legal opinion that the invasion of Iraq was lawful, and yet millions regard him as a war criminal, myself included.

So where does this leave us with minimum pricing?  My view is that the SNP ministers are unconcerned about the legal position, especially as they have the go ahead from a government lawyer - from whom independent legal advice is guaranteed!  In other words, they intend to chance their arm.  After all, if they lose a European court case, it will be the Scottish taxpayer who pays, not the ministers responsible.  The trade association of the Scottish whisky industry has already said it will pursue legal options, and a couple years ago, at the request of the Scottish Labour MEP Ms Catherine Stihler, the European Commission responded to a question on minimum alcohol retail prices - you'll find it here.  I find it far from definitive and hedged with ifs and buts.  Nevertheless, the way I read it is that the SNP government doesn't have a completely free rein.  In the words of the song, "There may be troubles ahead", but I think the SNP will need more than music and moonlight to get this proposal through.

Then there is the law of unintended consequences. As the beer blogger Curmudgeon has written: "The sight of HGVs trundling cases of whisky from Scottish distilleries down the M74 to Carlisle ASDA, and white vans hauling them back again to Glasgow, would underline just how barmy the idea is." An unintended consequence, perhaps, but not unpredictable. 

It's funny, isn't it, how it never occurs to them to address the reasons why there might be a drink problem.  The thinking is, "This problem costs us £X million (pluck figure out of some computer projection), so we're going to get the big sticks out."  When there's a choice of a carrot or stick approach, most governments just reach for the stick for a whole range of problems, mainly because it is much cheaper to pass laws about them than it is to address their causes.

The Children of Göbbels

All the various claims about alcohol taxes and sales are confusing. Don Shenker of Alcohol Concern says that: “Duty is so low in the UK that it will still be possible to sell very cheap alcohol and be within the law.” On the other hand, we read about tax going up faster than inflation and that we are more highly taxed than most EU countries. What is a confused drinker to think? Who's telling the porkies?

Well, the answer is quite simple: the anti-drink campaigners. Using the technique of the big lie perfected by Joseph Göbbels, they keep on reiterating the same falsehoods, which in turn are routinely recycled by an unquestioning media as facts rather than propaganda. Don Shenker's comment about low duty must be viewed with the following statistic in mind:  according to the British Beer & Pub Association, "Britain’s beer drinkers are paying 40% of the entire beer duty bill in the European Union – despite Britain’s small, 12% share of the total population. UK beer drinkers are paying £3.1 billion out of an EU total of £7.7 billion in beer duty revenues." The full article is here. So much for low duty.

It is impossible to have a rational discussion about alcohol when one side deliberately confuses supermarket-driven binge drinking with regulated pub-going, the media usually shows pints of beer being pulled in a pub when referring to alcohol problems (instead of cheap vodka and tins of strong cider and lager), the discredited 14/21 units per week keep on being quoted as facts, and the myth that our duty is low keeps on being peddled.

But don't the anti-alcohol campaigners have a point about supermarket prices being low, even with the new minimum price? They're correct about the prices, but not about the reason. The minimum price is defined as tax and VAT only, and won't include the costs of production, transport by the producer, transport by the supermarket, storage, advertising, stacking the shelves or checkout costs.

Tesco, seller of cut-price booze, has proclaimed its support for a minimum price for alcohol, so why doesn't Don Shenker and his ilk say, "In that case, just do it!" Instead he has publicly welcomed Tesco's "commitment" to minimum pricing - even though they have done absolutely nothing - then continues to whinge about "low" levels of duty and to demand even more regulation of pubs, the dearest places to buy drink.

That is the level of debate. Pathetic, isn't it?

Alcohol price ~ after the bang, the whimper ...

So the minimum price of alcohol is to be defined as duty plus VAT. It won't include the costs of production, transport, storage or advertising, so after all the tough rhetoric, this really is something of a damp squib, and will make little difference. I suspect that the government has realised that minimum pricing is a legal minefield because of UK and EU competition law. The anti-alcohol campaign herd has condemned the decision, but they are scarcely whiter than white themselves, a point made by Curmudgeon on his blog that you can read here.

The BBC item can be found here, although I'm irritated that their video clip shows pictures of pints in pubs which were never going to affected by a minimum price anyway, mainly because the price of drinks in pubs is far from minimal.

I've written about this issue before and anticipated some of the problems minimum pricing entails ~ click on 'minimum price' below if you're interested.

Farewell To Booze Cruises?

Apparently the appeal of the booze cruise is fading. I never knew anyone who actually went on one, but in the North West we're a long way from the South coast ports. Booze cruising had its biggest effect in the South East, with the local pub industry and Kent brewer Shepherd Neame vigorously complaining about the high rates of alcohol duty that encouraged this traffic and damaged their business - not that the government took the slightest notice of their campaign. Recently, however, several supermarkets in Calais, such as Tesco, Sainsbury's and Oddbins, have already closed, and others report steeply declining sales, so it looks as though trips across the Channel to stock up for parties, weddings or Christmas may be a thing of the past.

As well as the recession, several other reasons are suggested for the decline:

• The increasing cost of fuel.
• £75 average cost of return travel by Eurotunnel or ferry.
• Drop in supermarket prices in Britain, such as 3 bottles of wine for £10.
• The strength of the Euro against the pound.

However, if minimum pricing of alcohol is introduced, it may make booze cruises viable again, especially for people who live in the South East. The increase in VAT to 20% next January may do the same thing, and thus a measure to raise extra government revenue could actually succeed - except that the government concerned would be French! The old law of unintended consequences yet again.