Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
#1
Great! Apparently the government are considering a price floor on the sale of alcohol. This should upset moderate drinkers in the same way the smoking ban upset moderate smokers.
Expect more of this sort of stuff with fat taxes alongside all sorts of other financial measures to curb ungodly behaviour carried out by those who have alternative views on how they wish to live their lives.
I think it's brilliant frankly. Can't wait to hear the cries of how terrible this situation is and it's just not right from bar room complainers up and down the land.
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
#2
I think this is a wrong argument to use; pushing up the price of alcohol will only increase government coffers and make everyone poorer, as if the aren't poor enough.
It will make no difference to binge-drinking, if that is what it is supposed to curb.
Whoever guides the government on this policy, wants locking up.
Roger
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
#3
Well I wont disappoint you Phillip..its all terrible... As if it will make a difference to the lower end abusers! This country is over-burdoned with taxation already and really this is just another tax on the ordinary person. Alcohol is already taxed to the hilt. The ordinary man/woman is already taxed to the hilt.
The wooden gnomes running Scotland are pioneering this extra taxation...it seems they are all piddled permanently up there so in an effort to stem the tide of the piddled addled masses overdoing it...an extra few quid on supermarket deals should curb it all...so sayeth the soothsayers from the Scottish parliament. But will it?
Anyway..the wooden gnome to end all wooden gnomes..Nicola Sturgeon, a regular on the BBCs Question Time, (cant think why as she has all the personality of the talking clock), she is one of the pioneers of this legislation...and the legislation is drifting south.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#4
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
So readeth the writing on a wall near me. Or at least it was so some years ago, and for some time. I have not been back recently to check...such is the power of mural-manuscript; the message has been driven home.
This particular dilemma has borne oodles of comedic, strident and poignant outpourings over the course of British, nay global, history. From early Pharaonic plaint through the poetry of Walter Raleigh and on to the work of the scribe mentioned above.
It is hardly worth my while mentioning 'contraband' to you good folk of coastal Kent, there is this though...
http://www.the-online-homebrew-company.co.uk/Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#5
we all seem agreed, just another way of taxing people with a pretend concern for the welfare of people.
i suppose they had run out of green taxes.
#6
But it is not the same as banning smoking because that has identified and agreed health impacts on others. This is being introduced to look like that but is as has been said simply a stealth tax, and it will just make alcohol a pastime for the wealthier. Like cocaine, it will be the preserve of those who can afford it. Or steal for it. Not a good result, but an action cloaked in the legitimate health benefits of the smoking ban.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#7
I much appreciate and prefer the route taken by Gordon's and others in the face of a tax hike. That of reducing the alcohol by volume. But...there's the rub. It is not either alcohol or drinking that is at the bottom of all this. It is that which drives people to inebriation, to senselessness and to go the way of the Lotus Eaters into un-living. Life, it seems, has become a feast o'er-laden with salt. What lends savour to the repast of reality to most is awarded in over-abundance to the poorest amongst us and their least nibble of life's joys drives them to slake their thirst and to forget.
There is a deep cruelty in the nuance that divides little-hope from hopelessness, that replaces yielding for yearning.
Let us be ever mindful, "Taxes are good."
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 641- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 2,335
#8
Another nail in the coffin of sanity, this additional levy by the government is sheer lunacy, I remember finding out in the distant past when the average price of a bottle of scotch was £8.50 the cost of the bottle was 20p with the fine distilled nectar costing around 35p, the rest was tax
Looking at Tom's link certainly opened my eyes, I didn't know that there were spirit kits available, I can foresee quite a few exploding garden sheds in the future
Guest 725- Registered: 7 Oct 2011
- Posts: 1,418
#9
Regarding others, I think the notion of a health impact on others is to say the least unproven. In other words there is no real evidence of any serious health problems posed by what some call "passive smoking". It's nonsense frankly.
#10
That is quite simply not true. There is evidence by the buttload and it all makes sense. I don't understand why you would make such a profoundly illogical statement!!!
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#11
Not only health evidence it is simply revolting to breathe in other people's smoke.
#12
Job done!!!!
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#13
I'm am sure that the 'impact' of alcohol is all too often just that, impact on;spouse, family & friends and through violent crime the wider community.
It makes far more sense short-term & knee-jerk wise to legalise home-grown grass and imported cannabis.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
#14
Inhaling tobacco smoke causes me acute bronchitis and prolonged exposure (1 hour plus) causes blisters in my windpipe. These blisters burst when I cough, causing me to cough blood. In the past various doctors have concluded that my severe reaction is due to my being exposed to smoke as a child.
The problem with smoking is that it will inevitably eventually kill you and harm some others if you follow the instructions on the packet. Alcohol only does this if used irresponsibly.
If the Scottish model of price control is followed, the minimum retail price would be 50p a unit. That's £1 a pint for beer and £1 for a double scotch. Not a lot really, the only products likely to increase in price are the gourmet ciders such as White Lightning.
PG.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
#15
But if the tax goes up on alcohol, it goes up on all sales doesn't it Peter ? Including pubs and restaurants etc. In that case fewer people will be drinking in pubs and restaurants and so those premises will suffer badly - money's tight all round and this will make it tighter.
Roger
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
#16
It's not a tax increase being proposed, just a minimum retail price as far as I can make out.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
#17
I've also heard that smoking is contributing to global warming.
Is this true?
#18
Are you implying that smoking is not harmful, with use of irony?
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
#19
Smoking IS most definitely harmful to those who do it and those around them.
I was merely pointing that there must also be implications in terms of emissions!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#20
as the thread has been hi-jacked enough i will make it even worse.
it used to be cows that were blamed for causing emissions every time they dropped their guts, which i can assure people is very often.
our bovine friends will be delighted to know that someone else is getting the blame now, they will sleep better at night.