Tuesday 11 January 2011

Whining Won't Work

It didn't work with your parents when you were young and it won't work with the government now you're bigger.

Pubs will raise their prices as the brewery does, raises in tax/duty on fuel to transport the beer will be much a part of the price increase as the increase in duty. It is time to face facts, the government will put up duty and taxes on beer because it does bring in the money, hopefully to pay off the debt the country is in and not for duck houses but we shall see.

Of course we all could step out our houses and hold a revolution, in the words of V 'People shouldn't be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of their people.' But lets face it, unlikely.

6 comments:

  1. Whining may not work, but voting with your feet and staying away from the pub might.

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  2. Nope it won't Anonymous.

    Government will make its cash from supermarket or pub. All staying away from pubs will do is shut down another pub and I happen to like pubs.

    I prefer drinking in a pub to at home, personally choice but one I am very happy with.

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  3. I prefer drinking in the park with tramps or citizens of the road, but we don't get the weather for it oop north, so I have to sit in the living room watching soaps with the squeeze. With government cuts I suspect the parks are in more danger than the pubs.

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  4. Agreed.

    We might as well dream of the tax-man shivering in fear of us...

    One good thing, though, is that larger prices might make people more selective.

    We might see better beers and cleaner carpets from here on...

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  5. Cookie, they have been thinking about selling off the forests. So much for green policies....

    Hearty Goodfellow, it tends to focus my mind when I only have soo much money for a couple of drinks. But I suspect people will stick to what they know regardless of cost.

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  6. Whining never changes anything, so do something else. One major cause of beer price inflation is the beer tax escalator that increases the tax by more than inflation. Why not lobby your MP about that? Before anyone decides to mock my naïvity, remember the fuel tax escalator was ended by public opposition.

    The tax increases are now self-defeating. A lot of people allocate a fixed amount of money to drink, so if the price goes up, they drink less, resulting in no gain for the Treasury. Pubs closing further accelerates this process.

    The main problem with changing politicians' minds as I see it is the rehetoric by successive governments about problem drinking. Ending the tax escalator will inevitably be denounced by the anti-alcohol campaigners as going soft on binge drinkers, which is of course nonsense.

    If you want to do more than cry into your beer, a good place to begin is the "I'm Backing The Pub" website, which you can find here.

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