Will he walk the walk?

[youngmafbog]

Cameron tried to put himself on the side of Britain’s hard workers at the Tory Party conference, now he now has the perfect opportunity to back up his words with action.

Introduced by Labour in 2008(Nothing like Labour to hit the workers, I mean how dare they enjoy themselves), the escalator puts the price of a pint up by two per cent above inflation every year.

This means today that British beer drinkers now pay 10 times more tax as boozers in other parts of Europe, for every pint sold in Britain, nearly £1 goes to the Treasury (so we can fund Europe no doubt).

It’s the same sort of kick in the teeth for hard-up Brits as the disastrous Pasty Tax.

So will Cameron and the Boy George Osborne stop treating the traditional after-work beer as a convenient cash cow or will weak Cameron fail again?

[emmie]

is there such a thing of the traditional pint after work now?
One of our awful bars, you can't call it a pub, charges 4 quid a pint on average, if much of this is tax then perhaps we should be petitioning Downing Street, the Treasury or anyone who will listen. They won't of course, Labour party are no different.

[Duncer]

No wonder people drink in Wetherspoons or at home? I was charged £4:30 for a can of Red Stripe at the HMV Picture House last week. I can buy a large 660ml bottle of Cobra for £1:50 in Tescos.

Mmmmmmmmmmm, it's such a difficult choice.

[modeller]

ymb
#This means today that British beer drinkers now pay 10 times more tax as boozers in other parts of Europemb #
I dont know how you define Europe but in Norway the price of beer was 4 times the price in the UK.

[Svejk]

There should be no tax on beer or fags.
We're subsidising non drinkers & smokers who hang around for donkeys years after retiring claiming pensions & using the NHS.

[Duncer]

"I dont know how you define Europe but in Norway the price of beer was 4 times the price in the UK."

Went to see Linfield in Trondheim about three years ago with Mrs D and a pizza, one beer and one Norwegian equivalent of Fanta came to just over £45.

[Gromit]

No he won't.

How much Tax on beer? Find out here.

http://www.camra.org.uk/beertax

[ichkeria]

If he's "on the side of the hard workers" surely he should be putting the taxes up. Beer and hard work don't go together :-)

[Canary42]

He will decide to kill the escalator, then prior to implementation make yet another U-turn and continue it.

[Gromit]

Here is the Government's Response.

// “The Government recognises that pubs and brewers make an important contribution to local communities and to the wider economy, in addition to providing local employment and promoting responsible drinking. This is why at Budget 2012 we announced no further changes to alcohol duties, beyond the increases pre-announced at Budget 2008 by the previous Government. The ‘duty escalator’ refers to those inherited plans to increase all alcohol duty rates by 2 per cent above inflation (RPI) each year to 2014 - 2015.

The revenues from alcohol duty make an important contribution to tackling Britain’s debt crisis. Budget 2012’s duty increase and increases to 2014 - 2015 form part of our credible plan to reduce the Britain's debt, which is required to ensure low interest rates and a stable platform for growth. It would be worse for everyone if the Government did not take action to tackle the deficit.

The Government’s ambition is for the UK to be the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business. In support of this aim the Government has taken a number of steps to boost business, from which pubs will benefit. These include a reduction in the main rate of corporation tax from 26 per cent to 24 per cent in April 2012. The rate will also reduce to 23 per cent in April 2013 and then to 22 per cent in April 2014. For small businesses in particular, the Government reduced the small profits rate from 21 per cent to 20 per cent from 1 April 2011, and extended the small business rate relief holiday until March 2013." //

[Quizmonster]

"The duty escalator refers to those inherited plans..." (See above.)
Just because you 'inherit' something, is that a good reason to continue with it? Tories keep on claiming that they 'inherited' the deficit from Labour...never a word about the contribution of their own paymasters, the casino bankers...so presumably they should be increasing the deficit, shouldn't they?

[modeller]

According to Google. In NORWAY the average price of a pint is £7 of which £5 is tax. This is about 70% compared with our 38%

[New Judge]

"The Government’s ambition is for the UK to be the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business"

They could have fooled me.

The burden placed upon business in terms of costs and red tape means that the EU is a particularly unattractive place to start up a small business. The UK in particular makes a great show of complying religously with every EU directive that spews forth from that ridiculous organisation, often "gold plating" them into the bargain. On top of that our own government places enormous additional burdens on small businesses in order to comply with ever-increasing regulation. It is estimated that small businesses with less than 25 staff spend as much as 35 hours a month complying with government regulations, such as supplying details of their staff and pay scales in order to meet the requirements of Harriet Harman's preposterous Equality Bill .

If the government really is committed to helping small businesses it needs to abandon its philosophy of micro-managing every aspect of business life and let directors and managers get on withg the job of creating jobs and wealth.

[Duncer]

According to Google. In NORWAY the average price of a pint is £7 of which £5 is tax. This is about 70% compared with our 38%

So the pizza and Mrs D's orange drink cost me £37?