A row has broken out over whether English towns should encourage Scottish drinkers to visit on “booze runs”.Well, whether or not you promote it, it will still happen if there’s any meaningful differential in price. If there’s a 50p minimum price in Scotland, and none south of the border, the potential savings will be enormous. Even if there was only a 10p differential, that would still be £2.80 on a bottle of whisky and £3.20 on a slab of Stella, so you wouldn’t need many of those in the back of a white van to make it worthwhile.Northumberland County Council's Labour Group said a “golden opportunity” to run a campaign to lure drinkers from north of the border could be missed.
However, Alnwick Conservative Councillor Gordon Castle said the idea was “irresponsible”.
And, of course, any Scot heading south of the border on his normal business will inevitably be asked by friends and relatives to pick up a few bottles and cans while he’s there.
Ooh, and look what there is on the north side of Berwick right next to the A1 and just a couple of miles from the border. How convenient! (Carlisle ASDA is similarly well placed by the M6)
A good thing they haven’t banned Schadenfreude yet.
Watch out for jock notes in your change.
ReplyDeleteFree movement of people and goods across borders! It happens everywhere where there's a significant price differential.
ReplyDeleteOn a visit to Tallin several years ago, I was astounded by the number of coaches coming across on the ferry from Finland. There were plenty of shops down at the port, catering to the thirsty Finns, who could be seen loading slab after slab of "cheap" beer onto their shopping trolleys, along with carton after carton of cigarettes. Serves their greedy government right if people exercise their right to shop elsewhere. Hope the Scots do the same!
Glad to see you're still around, Cookie.
ReplyDeleteMe too. Thought he was in re-hab.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to a report on the number of homebrew equipment shops opening in Glasgow.
ReplyDeleteJonathan Bagley