Jump to content

the Alcohol question


TheArtfulDogger

Recommended Posts

Just got home from an all night drinking session (well a night in a wet area with the other street drinkers anyway) to hear on the news that Alcohol is going to be targeted to stop bogoffs and cheap booze.


I am in two minds over this, a minimum price will mean that cheep drink will go up but who gets the extra revenue, the government? or the supermarket / drinks company? and like smokers, people will cut back in other areas to get their alcohol fix rather then cut back / give it up.


It is good to tackle the irresponsible drinkers but the argument that alcohol causes 100,000 hospital incidents a year and making it more expensive in supermarkets / shops will cut this number isn't strictly true, granted that some incidents happen at home, but the vast majority happen when people are out drinking (ask any A&E department) so will it make that much of a difference ?


It also smacks of Nanny State (and gawd bless her Nanny liked her drink)


Oh Heck, have I just posted my first serious point ? I need a drink to get over this now :)-D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No worries AD, it happens to all of us every now and then.


>> "cheep* drink will go up but who gets the extra revenue"


Will there be extra revenue?

Presumably the drinks companies set their pricing to maximise revenue and profit. If prices go up sales will go down.

That surely is the whole point of the policy, or am i missing something?


It is a bit nanny state, but the real price of alcohol has drastically plummetted over the last 20 years and, as seen in yesterday's news, liver disease is the only one of the major killers who's incidence is on the rise, dramatically so among those in their 40s, so it would appear to be a legitimate health issue thing, and thus probably comes under the heading of 'something ought to be done about it'.


*I've a lovely image in my mind of people drinking beer from a feeder in a budgie cage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

guess it will also discourage younger drinkers from getting their hands on (ridiculously cheap) supermarket booze if the price is increased dramatically so perhaps if people start drinking from an older, 'responsible' age there will be less impact on health/hospitals further down the line?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As Katie said, a lot of the problem is supermarkets selling at cost or as a loss leader which maens that it is ridiculosuly cheap.


BUT the real issue is our culture of booze (it's still relatively expensive here compared to most of Europe).


Just one issue among many but I think a big problem in pubs is that we still have a beer heavy, round buying, swigging culture (which is good on a social level) but have replaced 3.5% bitters with 5.2% premium lagers withour toning down the volume drunk. When I first went to pubs about 80% of beer drunk was bitter. Plus woman have joined in far more than in the past due to social and cultural change, greater economic independence and female friendly pubs.


Go for a drink with someone in the US and it often maens 1 or 2 drinks! Few places abroad have our after work drinking culture for example.etc etc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From what I have heard the policy is to stop people getting drunk cheaply at home before going out for a couple more and causing problems in town centres. As I understand it they want to sell each unit of alcohol for 40p which won't affect my pinot grigio consumption
Link to comment
Share on other sites

People drinking for pleasure rather than for effect (though these two concepts are not inseperable after several weeks on alcohol free beer I can tell you!!) tend to pay a premium, well above that of the cheap stuff, for something potable, so it's unlikely to affect anyone drinking a nice chablis, a microbrewery ale or a decent scotch.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anecdotally, in the ten or so years that I've been on this moistened rock in the North Atlantic the choice and quality of drinks available in pubs definitely seems to have improved.


The London boozer standard ten years back was a choice of warm London Pride, eggy Stella, metallic Guinness or one of those fosters/carling/grolsh/carlsbergy things that all taste equally insipid and can?t really in all honesty be called beer.


Oh and a glass of wine for the ladies of course.


These days you have a pretty good chance of getting something decent in most pubs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> A 70cl bottle of spirit contains 28 units. So it

> seems to me as though the 40p price tag is

> designed to not impact on the cost of bottles of

> wine and spirits anyway.


So the Minimum Price would be ?11.20. Yes its the Supermarkets who will get this money! I really cant see who this helps. Except the supermarkets!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing I noticed when I moved to London was the lack of Mild in most pubs. In the midlands a pint of mild (3 to 3.4%) was a pub staple along with mixed pints like mild&bitter, brown&bitter, light&bitter, black&tan, 60/40, mickey mouse, etc. But these were drinks designed to be sipped not bolted.


They were also often watered down a little while bottled lagers were warm or served from that 'cold' shelf that was usually an inch of tepid water in a trough under the till and when it was working meant a frozen half inch at the bottom of a warm bottle.


The invasion of the 'cool' foreign 5% lager was to get young people drunk drinking (Remember Colt45? Sold in tins which it made it impossible to water down so it was a club favourite along with pernod and black).


As for a UK drinking culture - there are parts of the former USSR and E. Europe where the ridiculously cheap price of vodka means alchoholism is widespread and people drink it for breakfast.


The only answer is to bring back the party seven. No amount of careful whacking with a screwdriver could prevent most of the contents spraying the room or ending up soaking the thirsty reveller. It was also difficult to hide in the pocket of a parka.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think quids comes closest to nailing it


What I don't get tho, is why if we are combining stronger alcohol with British habits, we aren't adapting


Why does it take some people years and years of being a knob before they go "wow I really can't handle that much drink"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always said it'll be a generational thing.


We start going to the pub at 15/16 years of age, and it wasn't until I was in my mid thirties that the need to neck a load of booze prior to the tyranny of the 11 O'Clock cut-off was finally lifted.


That means it's only people between the ages of 15/16 - 20 who currently have never known that. They will still be exposed to the drinking mores of the majority who still have that mentality and drink at that pace until 1.


The tories are considering repealing the legislation and bringing us back to the World War 1 imposed 11pm curfew, which I think is a stupid waste of the changes that are slowly bedding in.


It'll be another 15 years before this is really taking hold and better habits are seeping across generations.

I for one would like the opportunity for a tipple after 11 in the meantime, and not have to suffer thanks to the lowest common denominator behaviour at chucking out time.


Remember it was the police who originally begged for the changes as they were sick of the trouble caused at 11.

Ok they just pushed the trouble back 2-3 hours, they weren't to know that EVERYONE would power on through to the end of the night rather than the envisaged staggered p[artings across the night.

But I reckon give it long enough and we'll start behaving a little bit better, bit by bit as a nation of drinkers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@SJ


Probably the same reason why it takes some people years and years of driving like an arsehole before they think to themselves: 'Hey, I'm not the only one using the road, perhaps I should pay more consideration towards my fellow motorists.' Some can't or won't appreciate the consequences of excess, some can. A big difference I've noticed while travelling around Europe and the U.S is that kids often have a wider range of activities to occupy thiemselves with instead of resigning themselves to a bottle or four of cheap cider on a park bench. As they grow up they steadily graduate towards the pubs and clubs with exactly the same attitude to alcohol as they did when sipping from a 3ltr bottle of aggrandised battery acid. Scottish Courage have a lot to answer for.


But how far will the big players - like Diageo - operating in the UK drinks and hospitality industry allow this and/or successive governments to increase the tax threshold on alcohol? Because drinkers will only be penalised so much until they think (en masse): 'Sod this, I'll brew my own!' How much would the exchequer lose out on if that became the case?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

maxxi Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> As for a UK drinking culture - there are parts of

> the former USSR and E. Europe where the

> ridiculously cheap price of vodka means

> alchoholism is widespread and people drink it for

> breakfast.


I've had vanilla vodka for breakfast before, swigged straight from the bottle. Was staying in a caravan with my younger brother in the Outer Hebrides at the time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

just a pedantic interjection - the white lightning stuff isnt cider - its carbonated apple juice mix with a few slugs of chemical alchohol added - no brewing required. this is why its so cheap.It is aimed at kids palettes - its just a delivery system to allow kids to get smashed obviously the delightful British retailers consortium & the turd smeared alcohol producer lobby and PR groups can come out with mealy mouthed shite about how the taxes and regulations will affect the sensible drinker, but they dont make money out of the sensible drinker any more - the want to get the kids into their products as soon as possible to ensure future reveune streams. Not that they will ever admit this.


We are not as far from the hogartharian images of yore as we might think and these bastards will not rest until we are all mainlining their merchandise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

my word


a Mail article that does seem to have some sensible points


"A 40p per unit alcohol levy is a tax on the poor, most of whom are perfectly capable of drinking responsibly. It would make more sense to police existing laws more effectively rather than to make responsible drinkers suffer just so that Downing Street can shift the news agenda after a disastrous reaction to the heavily leaked Budget this week.


A minimum 40p per unit of alcohol will not have any effect on middle class drinkers who enjoy cocktails and a bottle or two of Pouilly Fume with dinner most nights a week. It will not in reality do anything other than catch the eye today, which is what the announcement is really about."


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2119191/Bullingdon-Tax-wrong-solution-Britains-alcohol-problem.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...