After months of hinting that they might introduce a minimum unit price for alcohol, ministers have finally moved to do just that. The Prime Minister is leading government action on drink-fuelled violence and binge drinking, a new "Alcohol Strategy" to tackle a problem Whitehall says costs the country £21bn a year. Last year alone, there were almost one million alcohol-related crimes recorded (and no doubt many, many more which went unreported), and 1.2 million alcohol-related hospital admissions. As well as a minimum unit price, the government is banning the sale of multi-buy discount deals, increasing powers to stop the selling of alcohol to anyone who is drunk, introducing a "zero tolerance" of drunken behaviour in hospital Accident & Emergency departments, and bringing in a late-night levy so that pubs and clubs have to help pay for policing. The Government hopes minimum pricing will spell the end of cheap ciders, spirits and super-strength lagers. http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16194599 .................................................................................... Are they correct in doing this?
It's just another tax con....If anything, they should reduce the beer/alchahol tax in pubs and clubs, and put a minimum price on alchhol sales from super markets, as that is where the youngens buy their alchahol to get tanked up and then go out on the town and cause bother.
I have voted yes but on this I cant see a fair and true vote, we all have a conflict of interest. I no longer drink and have seen the harm that alcohol can do to the human body and the distress and hurt it can bring to those around so I'm very anti and biased. For thousands more alcohol is a pleasure to be enjoyed with nothing more than an occasional bad head to show for it, I fully understand their point of view.
Raising the unit price of alcohol doesn't resolve the real issue of what has become a drinking culture, especially among the youth.
Dear goverment I love chocolate digestives why dont ya stealth tax them ****ers aswell!!!! Bastards!!!
I like how the bloody Tory twats have kept this seperate from the budget, and portrayed it as a health and welfare issue rather than the tax increase which we all know that it is..
Stop supermarkets selling alcohol completely and bring back off licences attached to the pubs. This way it was controlled. Unfortunately this stealth tax, which is all it is, will not stop people buying alcohol and getting leathered but will contribute to poorer families sacrificing something else such as food, toys/clothes for the kids etc.
My partner smokes and when she saw the rise in ciggs was adamant that was it, no more smoking. I just phoned her to say I was going to Tesco later and asked if she wanted anything, just get me 40 ***s she said and I will stop tomorrow, at least she believes it!
I don't smoke but buy some ciggies for a friend who is house bound. I bought some in Tesco's yesterday and the price hasn't gone up there yet. I have a friend who is a nurse in A&E and some of the things she tells me about people coming in drunk especially on a Saturday make me so angry. I wonder how people can act in those ways. Most of the problem is caused by people (not always kids) buying cheap booze in the supermarkets, having a skinful of them before going out and then finishing the job in the pubs and clubs so anything that can be done to stop this type of behaviour gets my full support. Even if it is something being done by the Tories who usually I can't ever agree with but that is another story.
This won't change a single thing as there will be shops who will sell it cheaper and what about the bulk buy stores? They can't police the shops selling to under age kids now so how the hell are they going to do it in the future? Before long it'll be back to Bugsy Malone and Al Cappone running moonshine through Penshaw to the dry outpost of Town End Farm. This is as said another stealth tax on the people who enjoy a drink now and again and who don't get involved in bother, are there any stats or percentages about the numbers of people who drink and get into bother as oppose to those who have a drink and then go home?
All MP's are lying, thieving bastards. Who, instead of being there to serve the public, think they are there to rule over us. Not one of them worth a ****. Oh well, that's the wine making equipment coming out again then.
I sense a deep seated hatred of our leaders Billy, got my home brew sorted now might even start my own micro brewery and as it's for personal consumption it should be tax free (hoping anyway), until they close that little loophole as well.
I wonder if the votes on this will be split by age? I can remember a few good nights as a youngun but I can honestly say I never went out specifically to get drunk. In my day take out alcohol was much more expensive than what we could get in pubs so we went out to a pub for a few drinks and to socialise with mates. I never had much money so I was limited to what I could drink anyway. Now it seems for many their main purpose is to spend what little they have getting so drunk they can't remember what has happened to them. Maybe people are trying to blot out their sad lives with no job or mind numbingly terrible jobs in a factory or call centre or whatever and that may be understandable, but this is so dangerous, and it costs the country billions in policing, medical and cleaning up costs. Probably minimum pricing alone is not the solution but I am sure that a 'drinking culture' especially among the young, was not the norm 30-40 years ago and has only come about since the prevalence of cheap supermarket booze, so something needs to be done.
Is this a tax? Looks like a minimum price will be introduced, but I don't see the tax angle you're all banging on about. It's not like a fuel tax hike where the extra cost goes to the government.
People will just take more drugs as its cheaper. They will also drink at home before coming out. This is just another way of killing off the pub trade. More small business's will go under because of this, just wait and see. I would be much more in favour of banning irisponsible people from drinking outside their own house. That way the likes of me and you that can have a few beers and not vadalise the locallity or get into a punch up can still enjoy drinking without having to put up with the morons.
