Scots to bring in minimum price booze

[Roofless Toothless]

This should fit in seamlessly with the introduction of universal credit ...

[anonymous-user]

[redacted]

[Gecko1978]

Lord Marylebone said:

stupidbutkeen said:

Lord Marylebone said:

stupidbutkeen said:

Lord Marylebone said:

stupidbutkeen said:

Granted not a huge increase but I bought 9 cases to do me over 4 weeks and it woud all add up.

Is that just over 3 cans every day for 4 weeks, Or have I miscalculated?

On average that would be right.
I tend to have quite a few on a friday night followed by some on a sat then rest of week 1-2 a night.

I don't wish to pry into your affairs, but that seems like a lot. You drink 47 units of alcohol per week. The recommended weekly limit is 14. Is there a reason you drink so much?

I like the taste of stellas and enjoy getting drunk on the weekends tbh.

To answer your next question lol..No I do not see a problem with it and yes I am still very healthy for a 45 year old man.

Well that's fair enough. I've worked with plenty of people who could seemingly consume a full bottle of wine every evening and be perfectly fine!

I am going to suggest that a slight increase in price that leads to lower consumption will be a good thing. I used to be an alcoholic and before it became a problem i was a 2 or 3 beers a day at night sort of guy. it was cheap french beers st omer i think they were called 2 little bottles when i got in for years i did that no worries. Later when life took a turn an i drank heavily i do wonder if £8 for a large crate of beer had not been the norm would i have ever made drinking just the norm versus a weekend treat etc....who knows but like smoking cost rises do have an effect

[crankedup]

^^^^^^^^
But it misses the point entirely, although the sentiment and logic might fit. How many people who drink to excess rely on the lowest priced end of booze. Those wealthy bored housewife’s as an example, living in thier surburban smart middle class homes knocking back bottles of wine. Drinking problems are not confined to those with the least money and that is where this nanny policy falls flat.

[psi310398]

Nice little money-making opportunity here for a Glasgow coach company to run shopping trips into the Carlisle Tesco on a daily basis. Or indeed for Tesco in Carlisle/Berwick simply to increase the range of its home deliveries to cover the Central Belt?

Post-devolution Scotland can't respectably complain that different laws apply outside its borders, surely?

[anonymous-user]

Gecko1978 said:

I am going to suggest that a slight increase in price that leads to lower consumption will be a good thing. I used to be an alcoholic and before it became a problem i was a 2 or 3 beers a day at night sort of guy. it was cheap french beers st omer i think they were called 2 little bottles when i got in for years i did that no worries. Later when life took a turn an i drank heavily i do wonder if £8 for a large crate of beer had not been the norm would i have ever made drinking just the norm versus a weekend treat etc....who knows but like smoking cost rises do have an effect

That is my thinking on this matter. The increases in the cost of smoking (as well as other things) have driven the number of people smoking to its lowest point since we started recording that kind of data.

Personally, I would be a little concerned about someone who drank every single day and was also 'drunk' every weekend.

My concern would increase if that person would find it difficult to spend a couple of weeks without alcohol.

[alangla]

.:ian:. said:

Im sure the distilleries and breweries will do their bit and increase the wholesale prices!

This is the bizarre bit - the organisation that took it to the Supreme Court was the Scotch Whisky Association! You'd have thought they'd have been glad to see their branded products achieve something closer to price parity with the Tesco Value oven cleaner that's going to be most affected by this.

Oh - someone mentioned Buckfast earlier - AIUI, this isn't affected as its retail price per unit is already significantly higher than the minimum price, there have, however, been noises about capping caffeine content in alcoholic drinks. Surprised they didn't attempt this (i.e. pick out what's essentially a single brand issue) rather than taking on most of drinks industry first.

[dcb]

psi310398 said:

Nice little money-making opportunity here for a Glasgow coach company to run shopping trips into the Carlisle Tesco on a daily basis. Or indeed for Tesco in Carlisle/Berwick simply to increase the range of its home deliveries to cover the Central Belt?

Post-devolution Scotland can't respectably complain that different laws apply outside its borders, surely?

+1

If the English Gov are daft enough to implement this policy, then my beer money will be spent
in France and Belgium, so they won't get the tax revenue.

Penalising all drinkers for the problems of the few seems very wrong to me.

Targeted help for those few problem drinkers seems a far more efficient method
than taxing all and sundry, thus penalising the poor.

I'm pretty sure that if I had a minimum wage job, my daily post work cider
going from £4 to £11 would ensure that my vote would go to the first politico
promising to repeal the tax.

[Sheepshanks]

Lord Marylebone said:

I think people are getting far too worried about the effect this will have on 'normal' people.

I quote from the BBC:

"The 50p-per-unit minimum outlined by the legislation would raise the price of the cheapest bottle of red wine (9.4 units of alcohol) to £4.69, a four-pack of 500ml cans of 4% lager (8 units) would cost at least £4 and a 70cl bottle of whisky (28 units of alcohol) could not be sold for less than £14"

£4.69 for a bottle of red wine and £1 per can of 500ml Carlsberg/Fosters etc seems dirt cheap to me?

The prices are pretty much that as we stand right now.

On the BBC news last night they had a 4-pack of beer at £1 and said it would go up to £4. It's surely never 25p/tin?

[crankedup]

Sheepshanks said:

Lord Marylebone said:

I think people are getting far too worried about the effect this will have on 'normal' people.

I quote from the BBC:

"The 50p-per-unit minimum outlined by the legislation would raise the price of the cheapest bottle of red wine (9.4 units of alcohol) to £4.69, a four-pack of 500ml cans of 4% lager (8 units) would cost at least £4 and a 70cl bottle of whisky (28 units of alcohol) could not be sold for less than £14"

£4.69 for a bottle of red wine and £1 per can of 500ml Carlsberg/Fosters etc seems dirt cheap to me?

The prices are pretty much that as we stand right now.

On the BBC news last night they had a 4-pack of beer at £1 and said it would go up to £4. It's surely never 25p/tin?

Likely some sort of promotional give-away linked to other product(s). There was plenty of talk earlier regarding cheap promotional booze in supermarkets. How long before the regulations stop that I wonder?

[mp3manager]

55palfers said:

...they'll be runnin' moonshine over the border from Carlisle soon

briang9 said:

thanks for that..I am recruiting for gangs to hijack trucks full of "Super Cider" at Carlisle, applications on used £50 notes to Briang9 C/O Pistonheads please....

psi310398 said:

Nice little money-making opportunity here for a Glasgow coach company to run shopping trips into the Carlisle Tesco on a daily basis. Or indeed for Tesco in Carlisle/Berwick simply to increase the range of its home deliveries to cover the Central Belt?

Post-devolution Scotland can't respectably complain that different laws apply outside its borders, surely?

I don't know why everyone quotes booze raids to Carlisle when Longtown is closer.

[alangla]

crankedup said:

Sheepshanks said:

On the BBC news last night they had a 4-pack of beer at £1 and said it would go up to £4. It's surely never 25p/tin?

Likely some sort of promotional give-away linked to other product(s). There was plenty of talk earlier regarding cheap promotional booze in supermarkets. How long before the regulations stop that I wonder?

Supermarket own brand "value" type lager is probably about that price.

EDIT - also worth adding that multi-buy promotions on alcohol are already banned in Scotland - the result of this is, predictably, that a 3 for £10, say, offer in England becomes a £3.33 per item offer in Scotland.

mp3manager said:

I don't know why everyone quotes booze raids to Carlisle when Longtown is closer.

Cos there's a massive Asda at Kingmoor, just off J44 of the M6!

Edited by alangla on Thursday 16th November 11:12

[Wills2]

All this will do is play into the hands of the people who are already selling bootleg booze in Scotland and as has been said create a huge demand for cheap alcohol in the border towns.

[TheJimi]

alangla said:

...there have, however, been noises about capping caffeine content in alcoholic drinks. Surprised they didn't attempt this (i.e. pick out what's essentially a single brand issue) rather than taking on most of drinks industry first.

Which in and of itself is just as stupid as the min pricing thing.

Big cans of own-brand cheap high-caffine energy drinks + vodka = job done.

[Gecko1978]

Lord Marylebone said:

Gecko1978 said:

I am going to suggest that a slight increase in price that leads to lower consumption will be a good thing. I used to be an alcoholic and before it became a problem i was a 2 or 3 beers a day at night sort of guy. it was cheap french beers st omer i think they were called 2 little bottles when i got in for years i did that no worries. Later when life took a turn an i drank heavily i do wonder if £8 for a large crate of beer had not been the norm would i have ever made drinking just the norm versus a weekend treat etc....who knows but like smoking cost rises do have an effect

That is my thinking on this matter. The increases in the cost of smoking (as well as other things) have driven the number of people smoking to its lowest point since we started recording that kind of data.

Personally, I would be a little concerned about someone who drank every single day and was also 'drunk' every weekend.

My concern would increase if that person would find it difficult to spend a couple of weeks without alcohol.

yeah to be clear i am not saying i became an alcoholic because beer was cheap. More beer was cheap so it became part of my pre alcoholic social norm. I liked the taste i liked being drunk of a weekend etc but had that never been the norm then i am not sure i would have slipped into alcoholism when older. Also i would say when older an i had more moeny cost was not a factor but had it of been when 18 etc maybe i would have drunk less ar the start.

price starts at 50p a unit well when i was a teen (1990s) 20 cigarettes was sub £3 today £10 so minimum price is bound to rise after all Vat added at the end is a nice earner

[alangla]

TheJimi said:

alangla said:

...there have, however, been noises about capping caffeine content in alcoholic drinks. Surprised they didn't attempt this (i.e. pick out what's essentially a single brand issue) rather than taking on most of drinks industry first.

Which in and of itself is just as stupid as the min pricing thing.

Big cans of own-brand cheap high-caffine energy drinks + vodka = job done.

It's probably cheaper to do that at the moment (though the minimum pricing legislation will jack up the price of supermarket vodka), yet Buckfast is still the anti-social drink of choice, has been for years and there are no signs of that changing.

[anonymous-user]

mp3manager said:

I don't know why everyone quotes booze raids to Carlisle when Longtown is closer.

Because there is a SPAR in Longtown and that's about it?

Carlisle has ASDA, Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons, Majestic Wine, B&M, and various large off licences from which to supply the moonshine which will apparently be run back across the border and up to Glasgow 'Smokey and the Bandit' style.

[alangla]

Lord Marylebone said:

Because there is a SPAR in Longtown and that's about it?

Ah - but preparations are already underway

https://goo.gl/maps/QfzUJ4RmPjr

[mp3manager]

alangla said:

Cos there's a massive Asda at Kingmoor, just off J44 of the M6!

Edited by alangla on Thursday 16th November 11:12

True but there's also an extra 17 miles added to the roundtrip.

It's a pity Longtown doesn't have empty warehousing units standing around empty.

And maybe there's finally a use for all that space at the MOD.

Edited by mp3manager on Thursday 16th November 12:30

[Driver101]

psi310398 said:

Nice little money-making opportunity here for a Glasgow coach company to run shopping trips into the Carlisle Tesco on a daily basis. Or indeed for Tesco in Carlisle/Berwick simply to increase the range of its home deliveries to cover the Central Belt?

Post-devolution Scotland can't respectably complain that different laws apply outside its borders, surely?

Tesco already deliver from their English base. They stopped multibuy discounts in Scottish supermarkets a few years back. It's still allowed to buy multibuy special order online from companies outside Scotland.

It really won't be worth people's time and effort to waste hours on a bus to save a few pounds. You'd need to buy lots of drink to make a trip worthwhile. Not many people buy alcohol in bulk. It won't be easy to get off home from the bus either.

I can't find any drink that I would normally buy that's going to go up in price.