The government's top medical adviser has drawn up plans for a minimum price for alcohol which would double the cost of some drinks in England.Now remember it was first Scotland as I reported here; well did not take them long to realise this would be a nice little earner for HM Govt.
Under the proposal from Sir Liam Donaldson, it has been reported that no drinks could be sold for less than 50 pence per unit of alcohol they contain.
It would mean most bottles of wine could not be sold for less than £4.50.
A Department of Health spokeswoman said the government "had not ruled out" taking action on cheap alcohol.
Sir Liam's proposal is aimed at tackling alcohol misuse and is set out in his annual report on the nation's health.
It was Sir Liam who came up with this horsecock last year.
Still this is a government that decided that fags should be sold in plain packets, this from a chancellor and government who's taxes have killed over 2000 pubs,
A government that has set up fake charities, funded by the state - that is us via our taxes.
Alcohol Concern—an anti-drinking lobby group that receives less than 1% of its income from public donations Alcohol Focus Scotland—no strangers to a hand-out Alliance House Foundation—a well established temperance group founded in 1853. It funds the Institute for Alcohol Studies. Institute of Alcohol Studies—the research wing of the modern temperance movement. Funded by the Alliance House Foundation and the European Commission.
So called Quango's/Charities designed to parrot HM Govt reports.
Big Brother CCTV cameras are to be fitted inside shops and supermarkets on the orders of the state to keep track on anybody buying alcohol.
A law is being quietly pushed through Parliament giving councils the power to order licensed premises to fit the surveillance cameras. Pubs will also be covered.
The footage of people innocently buying a bottle of wine in a shop or a pint of beer in a bar must be stored for at least 60 days, and be handed over to the police on demand.
Look the point I am making here is this is going to become law, CAMRA the supposed supporter of the drinker will do nothing much until it is almost on the statute books. They have done this before and the stages are always the same.
1. Roll out the mouthpiece announcement.
2. Trial it north of the border in Scotland. Think I am joking on that look back, the smoking ban, poll tax etc etc. Its a fucking testing ground for policies, fuckwittery and now the sodding Jocks can't even drown their sorrows any more as HM Govt is pinching the money out of their pockets.
3. Have a cuntmonkey like Sir Liam to make an announcement.
4. Get the paid for fake charities to start a "health campagn"
But if you think I am being rather hard on the utter cunts in government, then see this on them talking of banning cheap drinks for us.
Then fume with rage as the overpaid pigs in The Commons get bars funded by our taxes! I covered this here.
The House of Commons Refreshment Department operated on a subsidy of £5.5 million of taxpayers’ money in the 2007/08 financial year, equivalent to total annual tax receipts from 35 pubs. The subsidy, not published in the House of Commons’ Annual Accounts, was £693,000 higher than in 2006/07, a 15% increase.
It accounted for 43% of the Department’s operating costs, meaning that the taxpayer coughs up £4.30 for every £10 spent refreshing our politicians: even before they claim back their outgoings without receipts through the notorious expenses system.
There are at least 12 bars in the Parliamentary estate, excluding the various dining rooms, brasseries and banqueting suites. Unsurprisingly, given the MPs write their own laws as well as ours, they operate without a licence and have no restrictions on hours.
Given the level of subsidy, it is unsurprising that MPs can enjoy much cheaper drinks than their constituents. A pint of Foster’s in Stranger’s Bar costs £2.10, compared with a national average of £2.80 (33% higher) and a London average of around £3.00 (43% higher). A House of Commons 8-year-old Scotch costs £1.35, while our politicians can enjoy a Pimm’s on the Thames-side terrace for just £1.65.
Next time any politician, an I do many any starts a blathering on about "binge drinking", "feral drunken youths","anti-social behavour","costs to the state of binge drinking" etc then call them a duplicitous lying cuntfuck.**
Now think on that first line where it relied on a subsidy of 5.5 million of our money. This just shows how inept the government is that it can not even run a bloody bar at a profit, hell even when its full of gin swilling over paid MP's! The subsidy even increased by 15%!
All this whilst some 5 pubs close a day, I bet these pubs would love to get some of that subsidy. Sadly they are not pupulated by worthless MP's.
Oh they have to operate in the free market, maybe MP's should consider that and add 10 or 20pence to the price of their drinkies...
**MP's incapable as the facts show of organising a piss up in a brewery, oh and for the record I call them all a bunch of duplicitous lying cuntfucks.
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12 people have spoken:
Smokers have been ostracised. Drinkers are being ostracised. The Church of England is almost defunct.
When exactly does the quango for oxygen abuse kick in - Demanding it be taxed most urgently, as we the peasants breath too much?
This can't go on - people have had enough of this constant governmental meddling and sooner rather than later, it's gonna blow big time.
And of course at that point , it'll be every body's fault except Gordon's.
Making booze more expensive, again, hits the poor. People with money to spend won't give a flying fuck over an extra quid or two, and alcy's will find the money somehow or just start brewing their own fucking hooch.
Labour strikes again in hitting the poor, and they just don't think these things out beyond the headline.
The Poll Tax was a Westminster imposed Tory policy that exploited the people of Scotland a year before it was also imposed on the rest of the UK. Maggie's vision was a key factor in driving the Scottish people towards a decades old hatred of Tories, which ultimately saw them wiped off the face of Scottish politics. At one point, many decades ago, the Scottish Conservatives were a force to be reckoned with in Scotland, but their failure to adapt to the mood of the citizens of this great nation has seen most Tories switching allegiancies or going underground!
This time around, both the smoking ban and booze minimum pricing is coming from Scottish politicians serving a Scottish Parliament. I don't think you'll find the SNP led adminitration introducing laws with the sole intention of raising
revenue for Darling and Brown to squander elsewhere or simply to test out policies for UK implementation later on. They were introduced because they are sensible policies for dealing with serious health problems that have been a source of great misery for the Scottish nation for generations. The rest of the UK follow where Scotland leads because they are sensible public health policies. Don't see any political parties being wiped out of existence this time around because they introduced the smoking ban. I believe the Scottish Tories also supported the smoking ban.
The smoking ban is a great example of good policy due to the selfih smokers not caring a jot about their drug habit slowly killing their fellow citizens. An almost immediate drop in heart attacks and heart disease has been experienced wherever smoking bans have been introduced. Try this Google search for reports for all over the world. Interestingly, the drop was experienced in Scotland within 12 - 18 months of the ban. I don't mind people smoking, but not in a public space where their action causes health problems to other citizens. You wouldn't let a junkie coming up and stab you with a shot of heroine, so why allow the smoking junkies to do it with their cancer sticks?
I don't know about you, but I certainly don't know any moderate drinker of legal age who goes out to buy the very cheapest super stength lager and cider from the supermarkets. I know plenty of people who like to spend £4-£8 on a good bottle of wine, which remains unchanged under the new pricing. Fair enough the 3 for a tenner deal may well disappear, but this wine wasn't usually that good anyways! The majority of spirits and other reasonably priced alcohol will also remain unchanged. It is the vinegar equivalent cheap alcohol that will be hammered.
Let me take my tipple of choice as an example... Blue WKD. The 700ml bottle has 3.5 units, which would equate to a minimum cost of £1.75. The cheapest I ever manage to buy a bottle outwith the supermarkets is £2.50, with it being around £3.30 most of the time. No change in the pricing of Blue WKD. Let's see some similar proof from other commenters choice of tipple. Is your pint at your local pub going to be affected by a price increase due to the proposed policy?
The minimum price and promotion ban for alcohol will actually help to save pubs as it will stop the "loss leader" sales practices of the supermarkets. At last the local pubs will have some levelling of the playing field. It is this supermarket cut price attitude to alcohol that is killing the pubs more than anything else. I know my local pubs would rather have a fair game than some socialist type subsidy! Where's the free market capitalism in subsidies? Try asking your local landlord about his/her take on the real issues surrounding the squeeze on their revenue and then come back with an informed debating point! They aren't going to, in the main, be affected by the new minimum pricing legislation, but the real fuckers who're abusing their market dominance will be told to put their business practices right.
Save our pubs by supporting minimum pricing and by going for a pint or two on a regular basis.
I'm standing right beside you on MPs getting hammered on our pound! They need to stop subsidies in these bars as part of the minimum pricing policy. I wonder if there is an e-petition to prevent the MPs of all parties from becoming alcoholics!
John Camra misses the point that by calling for price rises elsewhere they play into HM Govt hands.
What we need is duty to be lowered across the board.
Labour and to a point the SNP are staffed by latter day temperance movement types.
Politicians of all types should just piss off out of our lives.
Its revenue raising under the stealth excuse of health.
John A Thomson said...
The smoking ban is a great example of good policy due to the selfih smokers not caring a jot about their drug habit slowly killing their fellow citizens.
There's no evidence for any such thing. Most studies of passive smoking have shown little or no risk. The largest study by Enstrom and Kabat in 2003 was one. The WHO's 1998 study was another (although they tried to suppress it because it produced the "wrong" results). There is no medical justification for banning smoking in pubs.
An almost immediate drop in heart attacks and heart disease has been experienced wherever smoking bans have been introduced. Try this Google search for reports for all over the world. Interestingly, the drop was experienced in Scotland within 12 - 18 months of the ban.
And the studies are always fraudulent. Jill Pell's study which showed that heart attacks had decreased by 17% in Scotland after its smoking ban was introduced was arrived at by cherry-picking hospitals to create favourable headlines. When all the figures were in, it emerged that heart attacks in Scotland had decreased by 8% after the ban, and this was in line with prior decreases in heart attacks in the years leading up to the ban. Read The Scottish Miracle Unspun
I don't mind people smoking,...
Bollocks. You obviously do.
but not in a public space where their action causes health problems to other citizens. You wouldn't let a junkie coming up and stab you with a shot of heroine, so why allow the smoking junkies to do it with their cancer sticks?
So why aren't you demanding that drinking alcohol in pubs be banned too? After all, the alcohol in drinks is continually evaporating into the air in pubs, and alcohol is a Class A carcinogen, so drinkers in pubs are putting other citizens "at risk" as well, as Michael McFadden pointed out in the BMJ.
A cigarette emits roughly a half milligram of active Class A carcinogens with the most significant in terms of weight being benzene at 3/10ths of a milligram. A standard martini releases roughly one full gram of the Class A carcinogen ethyl alcohol into the air in the space of an hour: an amount equal to 2,000 cigarettes. You can see this for yourself most clearly if you pour a large shot (48 grams) of grain alcohol into a martini glass and set it someplace ventilated and safe for two days. When you come back it will be gone. If the cat didn't drink it the alcohol went into the air and was breathed and ingested by any who wandered through the room during that period.
But you aren't going to demand that drinking alcohol in pubs be banned because you happen to like drinking, don't you, you cunt?
Got to say that John, you are obviously a Labour cock sucking cunt trying to make tacit excuses for their shit policies which hit the poor hardest while having tacit digs at Tories. As an example, anyone with half a braincell knows that the poll tax was right and is now actually being called for by many to replace the community charge, just google it.
Twat, and I bet you cut and pasted that post to dozens if not hundreds of other blogs.
Houdini, at least some of the other commentators have tried to make a counter point, not so yourself who's got it all wrong!
I'm not going to waste time even looking at people calling for the return of the Poll Tax! A tax that hits the most vulnerable in society the hardest. There is no way that any UK government will ever try that failed experiment again, well not unless they want to lose power.
If you can find my earlier post copied and pasted on any other blog then I'll come and suck your Tory cock! A quick Google or check on other prominent Conservative blogs would have revealed not a single instance elsewhere.
As for being a Labour supporter. Now that made me laugh! You're obviously so consumed by your own importance that you've failed to notice the many scathing comments about Nu Laburr I've posted previously on this blog, which I believe demonstrates a loathing for what Nu Laburr has done to this country over the last decade.
May I recommend you go back to continuing your wank over photos of Maggie :-).
Stanislav, I did you the courtesy of starting to look at the case against dropping heart attack rates, but gave up when the 1st independent statistics pointed to in the counter argument were in fact for heart surgery, at a time when NHS Scotland were treating more and more people, reducing waiting times and focussing on cancer and heart disease cases. The same source of statistics used by the other blogger shows a general reduction trend of death due to heart attacks for a number of years. Let's agree that we need a few more years of statistics to see who may be right or wrong on this one. I'll meet you back here in a few years ;-).
I really don't mind smokers puffing away, as long as it isn't in a public space that everyone should be able to enjoy without fear for their health. Smoke yourself to death... just as long as it's confined to your own death and feel free to passively share the experience with other puffers. Actually, I do mind when smokers blow smoke into the lungs of our children, but that is just been emotive.
I actually didn't go to any pub that often, prefering to go onto the less smoky clubs, until the smoking ban came along. I simply couldn't stand the smell of smoke on my clothes and the difficulty breathing the poluted air. My local has seen an increase in patrionage of 1000% from me following the smoking ban and there are many other folk in the village that think the same. The landlord was pleased with the general trend upwards in trade when the ban came in.
I believe the vast majority of people go to a pub to drink alcohol, which after confirming with my local landlord would appear to be the primary business activity of that sector. As such I'm happy to accept the risk from alcohol along with the vast majority of other patrons who're also there to consume alcohol. It is also a bit of a false argument to equate a consequence of the primary activity of a public house with the whole passive smoking debate. Generally most people I know tend to consume their drink rather than see it all evaporate away.
I actually used to use Xylene, which has Benzene somewhere in its chemical make-up, and Iso-Propyl Alcohol. I'd happily drink IPA if my life depended on it, but even the smell of Xylene was enough to make me feel physically ill. Perhaps you'd like to drink some Benzene if it is safer than alcohol! That should show that even I can make up nonsense arguments and please don't drink any Benzene... goodness, you've already done it... get yourself to casualty quick smart man :-).
Now to finish off in the style of Houdini.... you're obviously all FOREST card carrying, BNP loving, Nazi cocksuckers in here... well apart from you Fido :-D. That's a bit of satire before the Troll comments start back up again.
Houdini, at least some of the other commentators have tried to make a counter point, not so yourself who's got it all wrong!
Why try putting a counter argument to such verbose shite? Ypur whole hypothesis centred on how wrong the Tories were, and here we are in 2009. You spout shit, simple as that.
I'm not going to waste time even looking at people calling for the return of the Poll Tax! A tax that hits the most vulnerable in society the hardest. There is no way that any UK government will ever try that failed experiment again, well not unless they want to lose power.
There you go spouting utter and untrue shit again. Like the community charge today there were levels to which people on low incomes didn't pay, but that wouldn't fit in with your argument would you dishonest cunt? Tell the pensioner paying the same as a family of workers next door how unfair the poll tax was...but that wouldn't fit in with your argument would it you dishonest cunt? Etc etc etc...
If you can find my earlier post copied and pasted on any other blog then I'll come and suck your Tory cock! A quick Google or check on other prominent Conservative blogs would have revealed not a single instance elsewhere.
And now you've completely shown your true colours by assuming I am a Tory. Just because someone supports something which is so fundamentally fair, like the Poll Tax, doesn't make them a Tory. That being said, when someone comes on spouting such utter shit about the Poll Tax, which they either don't understand, or deliberately misrepresents, then it is a fair assumption that they are cheesy Labour cock licking scum, like dishonest cunts such as you.
Nu Laburr I've posted previously on this blog, which I believe demonstrates a loathing for what Nu Laburr has done to this country over the last decade....
We cab name Labour MP's who have been scathing over the past decade, but they still line up to get them re-elected, just like you will you dishonest cunt.
May I recommend you go back to continuing your wank over photos of Maggie :-).
And there you go again. Not nearly half as clever as you think. Now let's see who you are...Justin, Bacon chomping big nosed cunt...or maybe the great cheesy cock licker himself Draper...who knows, but we can be sure of some things can't we?
Let's agree that we need a few more years of statistics to see who may be right or wrong on this one.
I can agree with that. But in agreeing with it, I must call upon you to agree that the kind of study produced by Jill Pell was in the very least premature as well as being partial, and so dishonest.
I really don't mind smokers puffing away, as long as it isn't in a public space that everyone should be able to enjoy without fear for their health.
Fear being the operative word. There is no genuine threat to their health whatsover, as I have shown.
I actually didn't go to any pub that often,... My local has seen an increase in patrionage of 1000% from me following the smoking ban.
So instead of going to a pub once every 10 years, you now visit them twice a year. You must be in the vanguard of all those non-smokers who were going to fill the pubs once smokers had been banished from them, but never came. I used to go to my local every day. Now I never go.
The landlord was pleased with the general trend upwards in trade when the ban came in.
Your pub must be one of the exceptions. Pubs have been closing at the rate of 30 or more a week since the the smoking ban. It's the restaurant pubs which seem to survive best. Or those which accommodate smokers as best they can.
I believe the vast majority of people go to a pub to drink alcohol
That certainly seems to be the case now. In the past they used to go to pubs to drink, smoke, eat, chat, flirt, laugh, play pool, listen to the juke box. Now they all too often just sit at the bar in silence with their beer.
I simply couldn't stand the smell of smoke on my clothes and the difficulty breathing the poluted air... even the smell of Xylene was enough to make me feel physically ill.
Sensitive little cunt, aren't you? I'm sure that there are plenty of other things you can't stand either.
Houdini, best leave John A. Thomson crying into his Blue WKD alcopop, perhaps he will grow up soon.
I'm not too bothered about the immediate effect of imposing a minimum charge per unit, except that it will creep up and up over the years because it is a long time since I felt the need to buy a bottle of Vladivar Value Vodka ( £9.99 at all good rip-off convenience stores ) or a crate of pissy supermarket lager.
Yep, I think now ignoring him will be best. I don't mind debate, but when people write reams of guff and present it as fact, as he did, then tries to backtrack, it gets boring. I was going to come back and reply to his later missive but Stan beat me to it, it was for him anyway.
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