In my work I see lots of manufacturing businesses from north to south of the country and I hear confident stories of businesses being busy again, I've been in two food production factories this week, both with full production lines going and talking of reintroducing night shifts, and night shifts are to be avoided until your day shifts can't squeeze any more production out (its more expensive to run a night line).

The only down side to all of this is that both of those businesses, and its a common feature, are expanding their production by using agency labour and the one I was in yesterday isn't even using permanent agency labour, the employees are literally told the day before whether or not they have a shift tomorrow. Its good that there are now tighter regulations on the Agencies to provide sick pay and holidays etc etc, but its far from desirable to be telling 18 and 20 year olds that this is the way your life will work from now on, tomorrow you turn up here and we might give you work, but then again we might not, or you might turn up at 6am and we'll ask you to go home and come back at 2pm - and the rest of your working life is going to be like this.

Its how the mill workers used to run things in 1880.

No need to go that far back.

That's also how the docks used to work before decasualisation and that was well within my lifetime. To see grown men physically fighting for the right to a day's labour is a sight no one wants to return to

Well, most people don't want that to return. A few in government would be fairly happy to see it return. The only way to incentivise the low paid is to reduce wages and conditions. Keeps them on their toes y'see, and then will be grateful for the scraps of work provided to them by benevolent private sector owners.
Alternatively the highly paid can only be incentivised by more money.

Timings.

It would appear the timing of the minimum pricing of alcohol was a little odd. Perhaps they didn't want the main attention over the weekend for the government to be on the granny tax and supporting the very rich.

I don't think Cameron and Osborne really expected quite such negative press, they even reverted to trying to blame the lib dems at one point.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Nobody on this thread has said that the investment by GSK, or more jobs in general, is a bad thing. Regardless of their political stance.

The minimum price announcement was brought forward to Friday for precisely that reason. Yvette Cooper accused Cameron & Gideon of using Theresa May as a human shield to deflect attention away from the budget. Fortunately it appears to have had only a limited mitigating effect and most commentators are still referencing the "granny tax"

Channel 4's Factcheck makes an interesting analysis of [url=http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-how-many-lives-will-alcohol-strategy-save/10002the effects of alcohol minimum pricing on health[/url

There were three points raised during the Jeremy Vine show yesterday, and whilst its often "Outraged of The Mail" who calls in to that show I did find myself agreeing with all of them...

1. Beers that are retailed today have a higher alcohol content than, say, 30 years ago, mild beers are non existant outside of individual micro-brewers.

2. 5pm opening and 11pm closing times actually did limit alcohol consumption and while you'd get one in when last orders were called and maybe finish with a spirit, generally speaking there wasn't a culture of getting as much beer down your neck as possible because they are closing at 11pm - borne out by the fact that NO pubs had the need for doormen when I was 30 years old.

3. Alcohol in the home was for polite sipping when your auntie came around and if you were going out on a Saturday it would be early sat evening (not 10pm) and you wouldn't "load up" on wine and spirits BEFORE you went out.


If making alcohol more expensive prevents (3) from happening then maybe it will do some good, (1) and (2) can only be solved by legislation.

We could help by not paying alcoholics extra benefits for being on long term sick, it only goes on more White Lightening, or they move up the quality scale a bit.

It strikes me that the government want the prices to increase due to............................More VAT.
as an example.
20% on a £1 can of beer is 20p
20% on a £2 can of beer is 40p

I think such cynical thoughts are disgusting, we all know its about the caring, sharing Tories wanting to help the poor and impoverished improve their lot, shame on you

Why not just charge those who get took to A and E for Alcholic tratment, mainly the weekend town nutters. After all you get charged for an ambulance in a car crash.

Still no one from government has said who will be getting the extra proceeds of the 40p per unit minimum charge. It's not being touted as an increase in revenue duty, simply as a minimum charge or retail price maintenance in all but name.

Now if the 40p minimum is to be levied at point of production, pre-bond release, there will then be alcohol duties and VAT to be levied, plus any VAT on sales prices (costs + margin), levied by wholesaler and retailer. So it will definitely be a damn sight more than 40p per unit at point of sale

Its a slightly different scenario - the car crash ambulance charges are only made because insurers are usually involved and where there is a company accepting liability then there are charges.

In the case of an individuals health choices you could make the same argument for so many extremes and abuses, cigarettes, diet, sports, etc, etc and the counter argument is that we've already paid for the NHS, you can't charge us again for using what we've already insured against (thats why its call National Insurance).

Take that on board mate. Next time Im at the Dentist and Opticians ill tell them Ive paid for the treatment in my NI.

In the case of my waste of space nephew and his fellow alky scrotebag mates, none of them have done a days work in their lives, but have been on expensive rehab treatments and within days are back on the pi$$. He received a nice increase in his benefits not so long back as his consultant said he was never likely to be fit enough to work and the DSS doctor agreed. The last thing he needs is more bloody money to kill himself with.

Theres no way a minimum price imposition for any goods including alcohol would be legal under EU law. It's entirely anti competitive. The only legal way they could increase the price across the board would be imposition of a duty per unit.

They tried that on me when I was injured in an RTA a few years ago. I flat out refused to pay and in the end they gave up.

In the case of the dentist and optician you are getting an NI subsidy for your treatment, for the dentist its substantial and completely controlled, at the opticians if you can remember what the NHS optical services used to be like then its one of the more successful privatisations of an NHS provision.

I see people everyday who are paying an obvious fortune for what, in effect, is actually a pair of souped-up clinic glasses

There is a poster of the female persuasion on these very boards, who has personal experience of a family member drinking himself to death at an early age. It would be interesting to see if she reckons he possibly could have been effectively priced out of his habit

doubt it mate - it doesn't really work with fags & drugs for the majority IMO

if someone wants whatever 'fix' then that person will usually pay or the privilege

it's like petrol prices - people will always pay the price if it remains the practical way to get around,they will just keep their cars a bit longer or buy second hand each time instead of buying new

It would do us all a favour. He dies, benefits can be used for somebody else, one less 2@. Everyones a winner.

I would rather them remove his money so he cannot kill himself. Not everyone would win, my sister, his brother and his two kids would lose out.

Osborne has been clever. Scrapped the 50p tax before it bit - people who could having brought forward income to before it was intrduced and now announced its future reduction, meaning people will defer taking income until it goes down. The tax will flow in just before the next election allowing him to give away to the masses. The interim austerity allows for radical anti-poor, pro-rich policy to be introduced. He'll then hope a few pre-election giive aways will allow re-election on the grounds that he's managed the economy so well that things are getting beeter. The great bonus is that they apparently have demonstrated that high tax rates don't work - by drop in revenue after introduction and increase after reduction. So even Labour will buy into the matra for another generation. Genius at -taking.

And this is clever because?

Are you suggesting he simply wants to allow the rich to escape the effects of the 50p and 45p rates?

By the way, HMRC's own figures show £16bn - £18bn of income was taken early before the 50p tax rate came in and that cost the tax man £1bn. I guess we can expect similar figures when people defer their income as well so his "cleverness" will have cost about £2bn and that is before we consider what he would have taken in tax had he kept the 50p rate such that this kind of avoidance was no longer possible.



I don't see why the tax will flow in just before the next election. Rich people who have set up legal avoidance schemes have no incentive to shot them down just because the 50p rate has gone. They may as well save tax at 40% as 50%.

I have to say though Labour have been poor at dismissing the idea that the 50% rate was not effective. I watched question time the other night and Cable and Davies said this several times and it simply was left unchallenged for the most part.

It is obvious the two main justifications for scrapping the 50% tax rate are false. That it doesn't bring much money in and that those avoiding it will suddenly grow a conscience and start paying more tax now the rate has dropped are ridiculous ideas.