The latest issue of the BBPA Beer Barometer, covering the quarter to the end of June, reveals nothing new. Overall beer sales are down by 4.8% on a year-on-year basis, but the long-term shift from on- to off-trade seems to have stalled. It is now six years since the imposition of the blanket smoking ban, and over that period on-trade beer sales have fallen by 28%, as opposed to a 10% fall in the off-trade.
Remind me again why we need new curbs on drinking...
We need new curbs on drinking to save the working classes from themselves whilst leaving middle class drinkers be. Is that the answer?
ReplyDeleteWe have curbs because the ruling classes of this nation have always feared the plebs, and massed plebs tanked up are their worst nightmare = revolution. Accordingly, moral panics concerning alcohol are a recurring feature of British political life, even as far back as Elizabethan times. They won't be happy until the only drinkers are those who can afford £500 for a bottle of bubbly. The plebs won't be able to get that on their Jobseekers Allowance.
ReplyDeleteDear Curmudgeon
ReplyDeleteNew curbs are required at regular intervals to keep the professional puritans in well paid employment and fabulous pension rights at the taxpayer's expense.
Professional puritans come in two flavours: those who make a profession out of their puritanism, and those who turn to puritanism as a career choice - a sort of micro-TonyBlair.
The aim is to achieve endless little 'victories' interspersed with faux outrage against trite 'defeats' in a ritualised fight against alcohol, keeping the publicity pot boiling and the cash flowing.
Nice work if you can get it, and are entirely without conscience or principles.
DP