Not much evidence of that in the proposals for the introduction of [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20515918minimum price for alcohol[/url.

Quite what they hope to achieve is beyond me. They seem to be basing their information on dodgy findings from Sheffield University and claim that it will reduce binge and problem drinking. It will do nothing of the sort.

The problem with regularly drinking to excess is one of culture, not price. Visit France, Germany or any of the Benelux countries and you'll be able to buy booze in a supermarket for less (sometimes substantially so) than in any UK supermarket. Then go out for a drink in those same countries and you'll usually be paying more than in any equivalent British pub. Their price differential between a retail outlet and a bar is far greater than ours and yet the only problem they seem to have with drinkers is when a load of Brits go out on the lash.

It isn't the exchequer who will benefit (it's not an excise duty), apart from a miniscule increase in VAT receipts, it is the retailer. Tesco are in favour, Morrison's have come out against it. The biggest losers will not be the problem drinkers, they'll just fund their boozing by spending less on food etc. Those proposing and enacting the legislation won't feel the pinch either because they probably pay far more than 45p per unit for their single malts and fine wines. No, the hardest hit will be those whose budgets are already stretched but enjoy a bevvy at home (usually because they can't afford to go down the pub anymore or their local has shut up shop).

So much for rolling back the state, this is the sort of nanny-government even Tony Blair would've steered well clear of.

The biggest danger may be East Europeans selling home made vodka to fill the void. That stuff can be very dangerous.

I can safely say that it will not affect me one iota *crosses arms and sits back smugly*

You'll be wearing magic underpants next.

Well, for a start off, the OP seems to have forgotten that we don't have a Tory government. We have a coalition. So whether the Tories want to roll back the State or not, they would only be able to do so if the Liberals agreed.

Having gotten that rather obvious point out of the way, short of returning to a regime of more limited opening hours - something that I'd love given what has happened in my area since the opening hours were extended - hiking up the prices will make people think twice about how much booze they buy and that can only be a good thing.

However, even if the law is passed, the EU may intervene - something about anti competition rules - and so it all may be for nothing anyway. But the government can but try to rule its own country even though the attempt may be fruitless ultimately.

Probably tokenesque press regulation to be announced shortly as well.

Where will this Tory state nannyism end?

Wahey, here we go again.... Tories make the good decisions, LibDems the bad.

Personally, and as an enthusiastic drinker of what is known as 'Real Ale', I think this is a good thing. It's not going to affect the price of beer in pubs as they're always above the minimum cost due to the ridiculous "escalator +" price rises.
My hope is that it'll affect the tax dodging supermarket giants and encourage people back to the good old fashioned boozer, saving a dying breed in the process.

I prefer drinking in pubs that at home but if I'm going to a party and want to buy 20 cans to take with me then why should I be forced to pay more than what it is worth?

I hope that all the people who like drinking cheap, strong booze at home do stop buying it and instead make their own beer or wine then the government won't be getting any tax on it.

Well I am not sure how this will affect prices of mainstream beers and larger's much at all and I don't see how its going to deter anyone even when it does affect the price of cheap booze.

Stella Artois is 4.8% and Tesco sell a pack for four 440ml cans for £4.29. The number of units in a 440ml can is 4.8 * 440 / 1000 so that is about 2.1 units per can.

So 95p a can and given this isn't a tax so the wholesale price and the exchequers cut will be unchanged (bar a tiny increase in VAT) why would the price of this go up?

They sell 8 cans of Abbott Strong Ale for on special offer at £9. They are 500ml cans and its 5% so that would go up to £9.04. Wow.

OK there is a lot of own brand cheapo stuff out there. Tesco's cheapest own bitter is £1 for a four pack but its only 2.1% anyway. So its just less than a unit per can so this would go up to £2.

Their cheapest 2 litre bottle of 5% cider would go from £2.09 to £4.50.

I don't see even these mark ups as deterrent level prices for the determined binge drinker. Get them to a level that would deter and all you get then is smuggling and criminality. Prohibition anyone?

I do see the fact the less well off responsible drinker who might have to go for the cheaper stuff is going to be shafted in the pocket by a policy that probably isn't going to work anyway.

I don't see how this will affect pubs, since most charge well over the 45p per unit that would be set as the minimum.

What it may stop is people getting blasted off their tits on cheap premium strength beer. No one buys this sort of stuff because they actually enjoy the taste, or think they are drinking a quality product.

It serves as a sort of quasi-medicine to try and relieve them of the day-to-day 'pain' of their lives.

That said, Saturday night in most UK city centres is absolute carnage.

No one has said it will affect pubs, it's not aimed at pubs, it's aimed at the off-sales retail market.

Maybe it will make people start appreciating real ale and traditional beverages where time and effort has gone in to making a good brew with a unique taste (and hence it costs a bit more) rather than the dominance of produce at the lowest cost to get bladdered 'fizzy pop'.

Lidl sell Grafenwalder, a german lager that is brewed under the Reinheitsgebot (German purity laws), at a current price of 85p per 500ml can of 4.8% (2.4 units). So if this law is enacted, it will mean drinkers will be forced to pay more for a quality product than they will for a chemically enhanced can of pi[is[/is like Stella or Carling, when previously the superior product could be purchased for less (excluding any promotions).

It will be interesting to see how they propose to control the artisanal cider makers that populate many country lanes in Worcestershire & the South West

Ronald Reagan once said, [i"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories."[/i

Reagan is often glorified by the GOP as a champion of old school libertarianism. Indeed, Jeb Bush recently claimed that if Reagan were alive today he'd struggle to attract votes in today's ultra-conservative Republican party. But Reagan was never conservative in the traditional sense. Sure, he slashed spending on welfare and such - not to mention widespread de-regulation (which mustn't be ignored in relation to the sub-prime catastrophe). But any money saved was spent five times over on a quasi-socialist model of defence subsidies such as SDI, the B1 Bomber, MX missiles etc., massive expansion of the military and the CIA coupled with a radical interventionist policy abroad (Nicaragua, Grenada, Afghanistan etc.), profligate spending on new prisons and so forth. By the time Reagan (and Bush Snr.) had finished the US deficit had swollen to the point of bursting.

If Reagan was anything he was a radical whose policies leaned more toward corporate big-state socialism than anything else. You certainly can't begin to compare him to the likes of Richard Nixon or (better still) Barry Goldwater - two traditional conservatives who really would stand no chance whatsoever in the modern Republican party. This seismic shift in politics coincides with the (relative) decline in power of the long-established East Coast oligarchs (the Mellons, Morgans, Stanleys and, especially, Rockerfellers) who were more inclined toward a smaller state, less intervention abroad, detente with the Communists etc., and the growing influence of "New Money" in the southern states closely tied in with the burgeoning arms trade which necessitated greater state spending on defence. Both Reagan (who beat out Nelson Rockefeller before he defeated Carter) and Bush (to a lesser extent) were heavily indebted to the latter.

There are some interesting parallels here with the Roman Republic which, after years of stability under the senate and its entrenched group of conservative oligarchs (or optimates), was ultimately undone by a deadly combination of expansionism and militarism. The existing power structure simply couldn't compete with the the new breed of political interlopers - Roman consuls they themselves had appointed - who were not only rich beyond measure through conquest and plunder but could also lead an army on the city (as Sulla and later Julius Caeser did) when money alone wasn't enough.

In terms of politics I think we are 20 years behind the Americans with Blair - kind of - assuming the mantle of radical Reaganism. The Tories, after realising they were flogging a dead horse with the more traditional policies of Hague and IDS (especially), have now got with the program and redefined "Conservatism" along similar lines to the American corporate socialist model. Not that either side has much choice. Britain, like just about every nation with the possible exception of China and/or a united Europe (when is THAT likely to happen?), is wholly subservient to the now Imperial US and its political decrees. Indeed, I think David Cameron's power as Prime Minister of Britain is now no greater than a client king or provincial roman governor overseeing the former superpower of ancient Greece. Barring revolution I expect both parties will take it in turns to jump a smidgen further beyond the other toward the (probably cataclysmic) logical conclusion of such a progression.

Not sure where that came from. Possibly your American Politics tutor at university?

The other thing that will go up is cheap wine. Bye-bye to the £2.99 bottle of plonk.

I don't understand why anyone thinks this will work including the loonies at Sheffield Uni who "suggest" what the effect will be on consumption (which includes an acknowledgement that some of the decrease they predict will come from on-binge drinkers cutting consumption).

I don't think they understand what is going on anyway. My son went to Uni this year to the same place I did 30 years ago, Aberystwyth and it's interesting walking round the town looking at how the pubs have changed. When I was there they were just pubs and marketing to students and young people was non-existent. Now many of them have blackboards outside offering "free shots" and various other special offers clearly targeted at the young end of the market.

When I was a student "shots" didn't exist and spirits were more expensive than beer. Going on a binge if you wanted to required a concerted effort to sink numerous pints and it wasn't cheap! These days you can be "fuelled up" in less than an hour for not much outlay. This pre-loading the government goes on about on cheap supermarket booze doesn't need to happen given the shot prices and the way the pubs market to young people means its cheap to get a lot of alcohol consumed in a short time.

The only way this will work is if the unit price was much higher at which point all that will do is work like prohibition did in the US decades ago where people turn to the black market and where possible people go off on booze cruises to Europe.

Even if they introduce as it is at 45p the fact they aren't doing it by raising duty is nuts. All setting a base price does is gift the supermarkets a higher profit because you can bet your life they have worked out sales will be mostly unaffected hence the support of Tesco. If you are going to increase the price then at least get some more revenue for HMRC.

Of course if duty went up then that would affect already expensive items such as premium whisky which is no doubt partly why, given the policy originated in Scotland, it is a base price and not a duty rise. I mean Alex Salmond wouldn't want to hurt his precious whisky industry would he?

I reckon Tesco will already have decided to use the extra profit on the naff stuff to improve the competitive price of the higher-priced stuff, hoping to take market share away from other supermarkets.

Actually, what is needed is a naff-stuff-czar who will use their wisdom and judgement to decide which rubbish should be taxed heavily.
I think I am the perfect person for that job.

No-one would be allowed to buy alcohol until they have passed the Barbudo licence test which will involve a written examination about units, malt, barley, Rheinheitsgebot, yeast, fermentation etc etc.
Getting served will not be tested by the age of the purchaser but by what they try to order.
Trying to order anything blue or tasting of bubblegum would add two penalty points to their drinker's licence.
Anyone found incapable through drink would get six penalty points.
Accumulation of twelve penalty points would revoke their licence for one year.

My decision would be final.

Oh, and Christmas would be banned.
Bah.

You've got my vote.

I didn't take American politics at university. I have, however, read the complete works of the American political historian Chalmers Johnston - "Keeping Faith" & "The White House Diaries" by Jimmy Carter, a good deal of Richard Nixon's Memoirs (highly recommended), two books on Reagan, various books by Noam Chomsky, Molly Ivins, Michael Pareniti & Jonathan Kwityny. On top of this I've worked my way through the excellent entire Roman and Greek histories offered by the Teaching Company in the US (Famous Romans by Rufus Fears, the History of Ancient Rome and Emperors of Rome by Professor Garrett M. Fagan & Rome & The Barbarians by Kenneth Harl) & sections of Gibbon's Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire. Add to the list several works on English politics whose names I can provide on request.

So - what are you bringing to this discussion?

Sounds very fair.
Can I apply to be a judge on the panel too ?
Being a non-drinker makes my tolorance of drunks and the point at which I consider them to be bladdered far more acute than your average person, a person doesn't need to be falling over drunk for me to write off their opinion as worthless drunken dribbling.

I find myself in agreement with most of what you post Muggy, but I think you need to get out more.

At the end of the day, it'll never become law. See the Irish Tobacco experiment for details.

But everyone would see my tin hat.