Socialist governments just can’t help themselves, can they? They believe that for every societal ill, there is a tax that will solve the problem. Either that, or they come with an outright ban, as has been done for all smoking in public places, and fox-hunting.
Now they come with this hare-brained idea to put even more tax on alcohol in order to combat the ugly binge-drinking ‘culture’ if culture it can indeed be called!
Binge-drinking has its causes deeply-rooted in the way we bring up our children today. We in the West have forgotten that children need to be raised by full-time mothers, not part-time ones. A part-time mother is as much use as a part-time lover!
If this government is really serious about tackling binge-drinking, it needs to find a way to encourage mothers to return to being there full-time for their children in the formative years. The government also needs to find a way of reversing the trend of the break-up of the family, for without a strong family unit, there is no sanction on dreadful behaviour by our young people.
It’s time that we stopped deluding ourselves. Good, responsible behaviour is learnt in the home, and from good, solid mothers and fathers. No tax from a socialist government wll ever be a substitute for that! – © Mark
THE TELEGRAPH: Britain’s biggest supermarkets have criticised Government proposals to introduce a minimum price for alcohol saying it will fail to curb the country’s binge drinking culture.
They are outraged at the plans which they claim will end up targeting the wrong people and penalize middle-class consumers who drink responsibly instead.
A spokesman for Sainsbury’s said: “We believe that minimum pricing will unfairly penalise our shoppers, the vast majority of whom buy alcohol as part of their weekly shop and drink responsibly in their own homes.”
And a spokesman for Tesco agreed, saying: “We accept that the country has a binge drinking problem, but the vast majority of alcohol bought at our stores is by responsible people who enjoy a bargain.”
Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph revealed the Government was planning to fight the next election on proposals to cut alcohol abuse with a staged scheme including tougher warnings on labels and bans on discounting drinks which would culminiate in minimum prices.
But the price-fixing scheme could lead to a doubling in price of the cheapest alcoholic drinks sold in supermarkets.
Tesco said the doubling of prices would not stop alcohol abuse and would just encourage consumers to buy elsewhere.
The British Retail Consortium said cheap alcohol sold by supermarkets was not to blame and described the introduction of minimum prices as “unfair”.
Andrew Opie, food director at the British Retail Consortium, said: “Any change in alcohol policy must be based on evidence and not disadvantage the millions of people who drink responsibly and would be unfairly affected by price hikes.
“Simply putting prices up will not tackle problem drinking. It has cultural causes and they are what must be addressed. The UK already has some of the highest alcohol taxes in Europe. >>> Myra Butterworth, Rosa Prince and Simon Johnson | Thursday, January 14, 2010
