The Great British Duty Con. The Day After
I think we should all be very concerned about this
Governments stance on duty – this is the second budget in a row that they’ve
reduced duty and in times of austerity it clearly doesn’t make sense at all. Let’s
not kid ourselves, alcohol is nothing more than a luxury and I should think there
are many more deserving causes in line for a state hand out.
Duty is a tax payable by the producer. It’s a cost
to them of being effectively licensed to produce such a valuable commodity as
alcohol. The assumption they have managed to create the feeling that it’s a
consumer cost is simply ridiculous. It isn’t. It never has been and a well
organised campaign, ran through the red tops by pubco bagmen such as Griffiths and
Simmonds, has had the net result of making the rich brewers and pubcos even
richer.
I fear that we’ve all been duped – this was never
about duty, it was very about Osborne and a get out of jail card for the
Government and the pubcos - giving them the cover they need to oppose pubco
reform. “There you go boys I’ll remove the escalator and cut duty – that’s
about 5billion over five years (probably a lot more) straight back into the
industries coffers so there’s no need to do anything more.” “That’s ya lot,
Bobs your uncle, over and out”. “Anyone for tennis?”
There is the old saying that you can fool some of
the people some of the time but not all the people all of the time. The
issue here is once again that people who pretend to know better, aided by
people who ‘think’ they know better, have stuck their snouts in the middle of a
process that won’t help publicans or their customers at all. Greg
Mulholland’s Treasury FOI refusal tells you all you need to know about what’s
really gone on here.
We are the people being fooled here and it’s a pity
that no one is prepared to call it for what it is. Putting the whole thing into
context, 1p duty is a round 500million directly into brewer and pubco pockets –
they simply won’t pass it on. Disgraceful really when you consider that nurses
were promised a £250 a year rise and they didn’t get it.
A worried and unhappy Steve
March 2014 (the day after the budget)
