I just wanted to remind my reader who thinks that regulation is a good thing that this is just another case where the incumbent gets a nice fat competitive advantage for already being in the game. Plus they get to up profits in exchange.
And MummyLongLegs highlighted another particularly egregious outcome:
Where this plan is very clever is that some people out there still go to pubs. However, if minimum pricing is introduced that will stop, simply because it is more expensive to go to the pub before you have even bought a drink. Taxi's and babysitters can put between £20 and £40 on a night out before you have even left the house. Ramp up the price of a pint or a glass of vino and it just won't be worth the cost. So even more people will flock to Tesco. Bingo. Huge profits and and increase in customers, almost a captive audience in fact. Tesco will have achieved where the smoking ban failed.
Hurrah for that health-benefiting regulation! Hurrah!
Regulation: it never achieves the benefits you want, it always benefits the incumbent(s) and it always has side-effects you never wanted or intended.
So far, this government has talked a load of warm fuzzy things, but the first thing they're rushing to implement is yet another "fuck the taxpayer in the arse without lubrication" measure.
Utter wankstain cunts.
PS I've got a nice shiny fiver here that says the HoP bars will be exempt from this. Watch and see.
6 comments:
They are just fighting over the last scraps in our wallets now.
As for tesco, fuck em I use their free ATMs then shop elsewhere.
Of course the parliamentary bars will be exempt. MPs aren't like the rest of us, they can be trusted not to drink to excess and then go out and screw other peoples' wives. . .
Oh, hang on.
I find this awful from almost every opinion standpoint. I'm all for Pigovian taxes (you might not be) and it seems to me that drinkers, like smokers, are already paying over the odds for a social insurance for risky behaviour. So they should probably pay less, not more. Plus, there is more-than-adequate legislation (too much I think and disgracefully too much you think, presumably) - drunk and disorderly is an offence as are drink driving and others; landlords and retailers aren't allowed to sell to underage or drunk people; the police and licensing chaps already run entrapment stings, using people who look years younger than they actually are.
How can all of that not be enough?
I rather think your fiver is safe. Safer than it would be in the Treasury's coffers, certainly...
This is "Tesco's Law". They are making out that it's "what the customers want" and it's "socially responsible".
The bare-faced lies are staggering. If Tesco really hates selling cheap alcohol - if cheap drinks are so bad - then why not raise the prices in every Tesco store? If it's what customers want, then who needs a new law? Tesco can lead the market for expensive, "socially responsible" drinks!
And there we see it. Tesco doesn't mind selling cheap drinks. It hates other supermarkets selling cheap drinks. "Tesco's Law" is an attempt to stop that.
I don't quite get why people find this concept so difficult. If a minimum price is set for selling booze then the price will rise in Tesco. But that minimum is not being set by taxation. So the publican pays the same for his keg as he does now. Tesco pays the same as they do now. Tesco cannot sell at a loss. They do just now. Your alky mate is being subsidised by the profit Tesco makes on the other stuff they sell.
But Tesco will no longer be allowed to sell you subsidised booze. There will be no effect on pubs at all. The idea however, is to stop people buying huge amounts of booze which once they have they drink. To excess and to the detriment of their health - for which we all pay via social and NHS costs.
It will likely drive producers of cheap "essentials" labels our of business, but it will have no effect on pubs whatever. Except maybe some people wont leave the house tanked up quite so much before they go out to the pub.
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