Badger haired Chancellor Alistair Darling hit the working folk of the UK again, with the 4p on a pint rise. Playing to the tabloids and puritans in the New Labour party he has delivered a charter for cheap imported larger smuggled in and supermarket drinking.
Remember this when your local pub shuts up shop for the last time and use your vote to kick out the New Labour puritans who desire nothing more than taxing beer and wine out of the workers hands.
From the CAMRA site:http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=whatsnew1
Four penny tax increase will do nothing to curb binge drinking but will hit poorest the hardest
The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has hit out at the Chancellor's decision to increase beer duty by 4 pence a pint in today's Budget, together with annual increases of 2% above inflation for the next four years. The consumer group claims that the increase will lead to at least 20 pence on a pint over the bar, fuelling pub closures and increasing unregulated drinking as more choose to drink at home or on the streets. This is the first time ever that beer tax has increased by 4 pence - a rise of 13%!
CAMRA recently announced that 57 pubs are lost permanently every month as the price differential between pubs and supermarkets widens. Pubs provide a regulated environment for people to enjoy alcohol socially and responsibly.
Mike Benner, Chief Executive of CAMRA said, “The Chancellor has failed to recognise that well-run community pubs are the solution to Britain's binge drinking problems. This budget will do nothing to stop binge drinking, but it will lead to pub closures on a huge scale, widen the gap between supermarket and pub prices and encourage smuggling and cross-border shopping. It's a great big nail whacked ruthlessly into the coffin of the British pub.”
CAMRA's Media Budget Hotline: 01727 798443
Prices Survey 2008 Results (XLS) Prices Survey 2008 Results (PDF) Download Beer Tax Campaign SummaryFrom The Morning Advertiser
Chancellor Alistair Darling has dropped a budget bombshell by unveiling a swingeing 4p rise in duty on a pint of beer and pledged to raise duty on alcohol by 2% above inflation for the next four years.
This year, Darling has increased alcohol duty by 6% above the rate of Inflation.
The move will add up 12p to 15p to a pint of beer and ensure beer prices rise by well above inflation for the foreseeable future.
Recent wholesale beer price increases from brewers mean the average print will have jumped in price by 25p since the start of the year. Cider is also up by 3p a litre. Duty on a bottle of wine will increase by 14p and 55p will be added to bottle of spirits. Darling said that the average price of a bottle of wine in the supermarket had dropped since 1997 from £4.45 to £4.
Rob Hayward, British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) chief executive, said: "Government is punishing all beer drinkers rather than tackling the minority of drunken hooligans. But Government tax policy is fuelling Britain¹s binge drink problem by driving people away from beer, out of the pub into the arms of the deep discounting supermarkets."
"They don't pay beer duty and don't allow brewers to pass it on, so their rock bottom prices will remain unaffected by this tax hike." He added: "The millions of people who enjoy beer have just been hit by a £50.5 million a month tax raid on their family budgets."
By aiming a tax hike at beer, the Chancellor is shooting himself in the foot. Treasury revenues will continue to fall, pubs will continue to close and beer sales sink further.
Every single day, the Treasury is losing over £1 million in beer taxes and four pubs are closing.
People are now drinking 1 million fewer pints a day compared with last year. That trend will continue.
"It¹s a decision doomed to failure bad for taxpayers, beer, pubs and bad for the Treasury as well." Opposition leader David Cameron said his party would have targeted duty increases to decrease binge-drinking.
John Ellis of the Crown Inn, a freehold wet-only pub in Oakengates, Shropshire, said: "It's a binge drinkers budget, he rattled through it very fast and all he could talk about was the price of wine in supermarkets - they're going to punish responsible drinkers. Supermarkets will continue to sell at below cost price despite this measure - it's the on-trade, which provides a safe and responsible drinking atmosphere, that's going to be hit. The government is promoting unsupervised drinking, it¹s as simple as that. Every facet of the trade needs to come together and fight or this is the beginning of the end for the British pub."
**They tax for our health(so they claim), they tax for green reasons(so they claim), they tax for no other reason than they can see no other way of running the economy than ever spiraling taxes...We have 4p a on pint, wine up by 14p a bottle and spirits up by a whacking great 55p. Darling may be the mouthpiece but that was delivered to us by that Calvinistic dour Scottish cunt Gordon "cyclops" Brown.
These puritanical New Labour bastards would tax you taking a shit if they thought they could get away with it...
3 people have spoken:
"These puritanical New Labour bastards would tax you taking a shit if they thought they could get away with it"...
Fido;
This could be seen as a Brown tax in more ways than one.
Brown tax, like it!
But if they taxed this, then perhaps people would draw parallels between New Labour running the country and going to the sh*tter. New Labour ministers of spin would never let that happen.
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