The Cost of Alcohol
Our glorious leader is all over the MSM this morning as they wibble on about what they have been told he will say on the subject of alcohol and ‘its cost to society’ when he visits a hospital today.
According to this pre-announcemet announcement, in 2006/7 (I assume they mean 2006/7 tax year), the cost was £2.7bn.
Sounds a lot, yes?
According to figures from the Office for National Statistics the government raised over £7.9bn through alcohol taxes in the 2006/7 tax year.
Now I realise that it has been almost 20 years since I sat down to do my dumbed down GCSE Maths exam but as far as I can see that is a net income to the Treasury of approximately £5.2bn.
Might I therefore suggest that iDave takes his latest piece of stupidity and sticks it?
COuldn’t agree more. Incidentally, why iDave?
It was the term coined (I think) in the weeks after he was elected leader – he was seen as the new, shiny, desirable object. Also denoted the fanaticism of his followers.
I was always surprised Jobs didn’t object to the slur on his product!
Indeed, and if they were to supply hard drugs at a reasonable price to registered addicts then they might cost society a load less. If my niece could get her heroin from the chemist, she might still have some of her inheritance.
Registering addicts is not something I would support – too much chance of TPTB also wanting drinkers, smokers, gamblers etc to register.
At the very least decriminalisation is required as this isn’t, as the case study which is Portugal is proving, a Bad Thing™. If that had happened then maybe your niece might have been able to sort her life out.
so the government is going to stop people drinking to excess by making make alcohol more expensive.
do countries in mainland Europe with cheaper alcohol than our once-sceptered land have a binge drinking problem? no, no and thrice no.
Of course, maybe this “pledge” will go the same way as some of his other “pledges” – but no, they were part of getting elected, this is not!
Making alcohol more expensive is not the answer. People who want a drink will find a way to have a drink. What would be nice is if the justice system actually enforced the existing rules about not serving drunks, dealing with people who are disorderly etc as then we (probably) wouldn’t need new ones.
As for binge drinking, the definition IIRC is twice the daily recommended number of units – a figure which we all know was plucked out of someone’s backside. As that can easily be achieved by drinking a three pints or a couple of large glasses of wine I think we can treat this with the contempt it deserves.
Just another day in the proud and noble work of Government. For the greater good this necessarily involves smoke and mirrors, lying by omission, scaremongering, some lovely numbers, preferably with a decimal point, followed by the magic word billion – millions were so last century.
And that something that must be done, because some boys and girls have been very naughty, means everyone in the class has to pay penance. Again. Well colour me surprised…
They do like the idea of collective punishment, don’t they?
This lot are getting scarier than Nanny Hatperson & Co.
Depressing, isn’t it?
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