In trying again for a minimum price of alcohol, one would think that The Boy had something up his sleeve as he can't be this stupid, can he? As Boiling Frog notes, even the Failygraph is being up front about the EU involvement, to an uncommon and highly suspicious degree.

Furthermore, the provincial government suggested minimum prices for alcohol almost exactly only a year ago, in January 2010, then to have the ECJ rule in March that minimum pricing on tobacco would violate EU law – in circumstances exactly analogous with alcohol minimum pricing. The EU problem is, thus, well known.

View full article here

It shows me how our elected representative has been further emasculated in governing my country when a proposed policy is thwarted by the EU once again. The whole veto thing tells me that people are crying out for someone to stand up for Britain, but they seem to believe whatever the dickhead Cameron tells them. Like pigs with rings in their noses, they are easily lead.

The interesting thing is that, if it could be demonstrated that a minimum price could have a genuine effect on reducing alcohol consumption, and that there was no other mechanism that could have like effect, then there is an exemption in EU law which would allow it to be used.

However, the ECJ was not satisfied that this was the case, which means that the court is effectively doing the work of our parliament - listening to the arguments and ruling out legislation when it is neither effective nor warranted.

Thanks for the link Dr North


I can't remember right now, but I thought this would come up against EU law too. For example beer has to be taxed the same regardless of strength - Stella is 5.0% and Greene King IPA is 3.6% but they are seen as the same product tax wise so have to be taxed the same, negating largely a 'tax based on units'

Ah... a new hobby on the horizon

From The Expat's Survival Book - some excellent recipes for ersatz (very)alcoholic beverages

SCUMBLE
A supposed fictional drink, brewed by the wizards of the Unseen University, Ankh Morpork. The original recipe is “Mostly Apples”.
For the ingredients for this brew, a canister should be set aside well in advance. Into this pour any dregs from half finished bottles of anything vaguely alcoholic, and any “failed” brews. When you reach about 8litres, add to this a further 10 litres of apple juice, 1 litre of pear juice, 2kg of sugar, and 2 teaspoons of yeast. Stir the mixture daily, if possible twice daily until fermentation is complete. Rack at least twice and bottle. Leave at least two months before drinking. This is a winter warmer, and as the original recipe states “Should be served in thimble sized measures, do not allow to come into contact with metal!”


A moonshiner's charter.

Meeting the exciseman (revenue agents) on a bright moonlit night down by the pond... - ooharr as they (still) say down here....

(edit) Having spent some time in Norway - I recall newspaper articles showing the volume of sugar sales tracking the remorseless ratcheting up of (state monopoly=anything over 4% I think)) alcohol prices. Vaguely recall something about putting a coin in a cup, pour coffee until coin no longer visible, then top up with home distilled hooch.

I'm curious.
What would happen if no-one voted?
I think I'll try to encourage people not to vote.
I'm a pisshead because I really don't want to see the World my son & daughters have inherited.
My better half & children don't want to know so I'll leave them to it.

The price mechanism has very mixed results indeed in trying to control such behaviours where people will rapidly and easily revert to home brewing as a means which certainly takes the management of any supposed health benefits away from the hands of the well-meaning.

This is especially the case with the distillation of spirit which potentially has major adverse health outcomes. Not to mention the physical danger (fire etc) as distillers get to the higher percentage range product.

If one were to be logically consistent it could be contended that raising the price to, say, a thousand quid a litre would extinguish all consumption where this is, of course, a fallacy because of the factors above.

Pubs would certainly allow for a greater degree of oversight where clandestine drinking would otherwise occur but from what I've seen there has been something of an all-out war against such venues for largely ideological reasons especially with the advent of no-smoking legislation.

Measures like these will do nothing to attenuate the adverse health outcomes for the 'middle-class' and the 'working-class' drinkers will revert to home-brew+/- distillation above a certain point in the pricing formula so will do nothing there either. Open borders also complicates the means of control.

Yup, it's a money-grab I'm afraid....


But look at all that testosterone being sprayed around in defending plucky little Britain against the arm-waiving wops, frogs and krauts........

Then again, maybe I have a wet-brain.....

God I need a drink....

I will be speaking with my socialist sister in the UK on Jan One. I will ask her about this.

I am not sure you are completely right there ... but the subject certainly is complex. I'll do some research and come back on this.

Fiddling around with the price of alcohol will do little to solve the problem of excessive consumption and won't raise much tax either. Cameron is a true heir to Blair on this one. Tony thought that by fiddling around with the licencing laws he would convert us to a continental style cafe culture NFC!

Aye Richard, but how? Is the big question there. Drinking in a relatively civilised atmosphere, at affordable prices, Bliar's lot cocked up there. They have caused the collapse of the traditional sociable drinking - with a pint and mates at the local boozer.
If one goes to a town centre, the drinking barns abound - just places to 'get off one's face' and no I do not frequent such beer halls, once again, I ask myself is this all part of the Bread and Circuses 'thing'?
You don't get banged up for a night anymore, if you are pissed up in the street, no, now you are a medical problem - small wonder there are so many attacks on hospital staff on the Fri/Sat night shift - when did [DD] it cease being a public order offence??

The last and the present governments encourage[d] binge drinking. But now, because of the appalling street scenes [young females more particularly] - SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE! (BMA?)

All it needs is - just bin idiot politicians, allow some pubs to have smoking room/areas, stop the shots, raise legal boozing age to 21 and drop the tax on cask ale.

What if Cameron does have something up his sleeve? Like Merkozy allow him to put 2p on the price of a can of beer providing he signs whatever they put in front of him at the next meeting. He is mad remember.

Also I wonder if it's possible to get pubs back into the loop. In my district many have closed after years of low profit trading. The condition of these buildings is dire and a lot of money would be needed to refurbish them.

Perhaps under Cameron's new planning laws old pubs can be turned into windfarms!

As Ravenscar says: . I'd also add how about re-taking our own country, picking up and cleaning off the remnants of our own culture, and - just for perks - using our own units of measurement once again.

That way our disenfranchised, disinherited youth might have something to live for. As it is, who can blame them for getting suicidal? It's just one way of telling the euros that we'd rather be dead than one of them.

Oh, and while we're still rabbiting on about it... I collecting piano wire.

Ah looks like you're right (I can't sleep so was having a rummage around EU law ). According to 92/83/EC:



And it seems that countries like the Netherlands and Portugal already do

http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/re ... hol_en.pdf

No, completely wrong. Beer is taxed by percentage, so the higher the percentage the higher the tax.

Cider has however a flat rate tax up to 7.5% and is much lower. Also, cider is (unless it has changed) allowed to be quoted up to 1% higher alcohol content than it really is. Which is why K cider is quoted as 8.4% but probably is only 7.5%.

The rates are all available on the HMRC website somewhere, it's late and I can't be bothered to dig them out, but trust me, I've looked several times before.

I'll tell you what, I can see a burgeoning home brew market coming up. I've been looking at it myself for awhile, but not done anything about it. But I see it seems to be building up again in popularity.