Minimum Alcohol cost lunacy

karkus30

You will when it winds up to a £1 and beyond as all tax invariably does. Price fixing hurts the customer regardless of how benign it seems to be.

pragmatic

Remember this isn't a tax, just a legal requirement.  Not saying that won't happen, with a bit more QE 40p will = £1

karkus30

The Canadians are coming so it won't be long.
Well for an average drinker it will add around £20 a year, or around 50p per week. Of course that increases VAT I'm not sure about alcohol duty. Whichever it will produce more tax directly and then the tax on supermarket profits will add to that. So yes, it's still a tax, even if it isn't an obvious one.

la gran siete

yes

pragmatic

Not necessarily the free market could adapt

karkus30

Oh it will. This is why its pointless. The market is always free, its just that those who think they can somehow control, or that interference has no effect beyond that interference.

That's why the money for loans scheme went wrong. Now savers are losing because the banks don't need the customers anymore.

domtheone

Don't really see the point in all this.  Drink at Pubs are eye wateringly expensive as it is.

Just force the Supermarkets to stop practically giving it away.

Course non of this would matter if the 1% (or whatever it is) changed their ways.

karkus30

Well they are forcing the Supermarkets to sell it at. A minimum.

Pecker

One of the rare things I see in this debate is the seperation of the two problems.

One is the 'lager lout' problem.  The other is the 'liver disease' problem.

The two will sometime coincide, but not always.

There are people who will go out and drink heavilly once or twice a week, throwing up all over the place and starting fights.  They may do this for 5-10 years in their late teens/early twenties, then stop, usually with no lasting health problems.

There are others who'll drink a bottle of wine every night for many years and do their bodies some serious damage, but never cause any civil unrest.

I'm in 2 minds abnout minimum pricing.  I can definitely see the attraction of the idea.  Stop the lout pre-loading (as much?), and stop the home drinker making it an even bottle-and-a-half every night.  But I can also see the argument about punishing the many to try and control the behaviour of a few.

It's an issue made more complex because of the impact on society in general.  What I do with my body is my lookout. But when the police and NHS have to pick up a large bill, then we've suddenly introduced a grey area.

I daisagree with those who say this won't work - I think it will work, the question is about the extent.  The big issue for me is whether it's fair.

Just because it works doen't mean it's right to do it. Just because it wrong to do it doesn't mean it won't work.

Steve W

Pecker

Quick question, does anyone know how this will impact on Supermarket deals.

Currently, Sainsbury's have an offer every now and again of 25% off wine if you buy 6 bottles or more.

I often buy a couple of boxes of mid-week 'with me tea' wine (about £12 for each box containing 3 bottles), and 4 bottles of something decent (maybe £5 each after discount).  Now the 25% off will usually take the boxes under 40p a unit.  But if you added up the total number of units and divided that into the total price, it'll probably still be kosher.

What about deals offering money off shopping in general, if people use the surplus to pay for booze?

Bit of an administrative nightmare, methinks.

Steve W