Scottish “booze cruises” have been predicted as experts say new minimum pricing are likely to lead to people taking trips into England for cheaper alcohol.
We have a price difference between England and France, booze cruises exist. And?
Scottish “booze cruises” have been predicted as experts say new minimum pricing are likely to lead to people taking trips into England for cheaper alcohol.
We have a price difference between England and France, booze cruises exist. And?
You are going to have to live close to the border and be really keen on low grade booze to want to do that.
It’s not necessarily “you” who needs to be keen though is it? More like your “mates” who might be prepared to buy some off you?
Not sure why low-grade booze would be the only thing on sale. The Scots government would appear to have two options:
Ban the export of all whisky to England.
Leave the English free to buy whisky and offer it for sale to all comers at shops in Carlisle, Berwick, etc. Which do you think they’ll chose?
Reminds me of something in an article I saw in a Carlisle newspaper some years ago when Salmond was proposing higher taxes on Scots businesses: “This would be the best news the good town of Carlisle has heard since Flodden”.
SE
The Times has this information:
Cheapest four-pack of beer: now £1, with minimum unit pricing: £1.78
3-litre bottle of cider: now £3.59, with MUP: £11.22
70cl bottle of vodka: now £9.97, with MUP: £13.11
75cl bottle of wine: now £3.09, with MUP: £4.98
70cl blended whisky: now £11, with MUP: £14
If those figures are correct, there’s a decent potential profit to be made on most booze, apart from the cheapest beer.
Is it social dumping, or unfair tax competition, or whatever they call it now, when the French tax booze less than we do?
Theo
That’s before you allow for bulk discounts presumably?
Good profits to be made by bootleggers, especially on strong cider as the customers will not be the sort who can drive (legally) over the border.
You can find perfectly drinkable wine in any Spanish supermarket for €1.50 a bottle. This is only tenable because Britain has no land border.
More a booze tunnel than a booze cruise for some of us, no doubt.
How does this affect those mail order wine clubs then? Whats to stop a company selling the cheap stuff as much as the expensive stuff direct to the consumer, just from outside Scotland, and sending it in by courier? Indeed would it be legal to have a warehouse of cheap booze in Scotland and deliver it to Scottish customers, if they ordered from and paid an English firm?
This is the point at which–had we a decent PM instead of the Fish Faced Cow–he would step in and inform the SP that Minimum pricing–like anti-chant and a commissar for every child–is not happening. Low level pressure would be to stop Scotland’s money. High level to dissolve the SP for good. And get a bit of cash back by selling their rip-off HQ.
The SNP dicks could not have chosen topics on which they will get less backing from Scots. A few members of the Kirk might be in favour but even they won’t want to stand with Godless Marxian scum like the SNP.
Just the line “You (the SP) were not brought into being to turn Scotland into East Germany on the Clyde” would do the trick.
Living in Scotland, we already buy most of our wine from England-based mail order companies because they offer good value and a better range. That’s not going to become a less-attractive option.
This is all the fall-out of the stupid alcohol taxation scheme where one type of high-alcohol booze has high tax, but another identically-high-alcohol booze has low tax, just because of what the product is. If you can get 30 units of brown blotto for ten quid or 30 units of yellow blotto for two quid, you’re going to buy 150 units of cheap yellow blotto, aren’t you.
The sane way out of this is to abolish all the per-product duty rates and have a single per-APV duty rate.
As mentioned at another place, I buy my wine from Aldi and get it delivered by the box from England a week or so later. I can see nothing in the new legislation which would require any English retailer to charge MUP related prices to Scottish customers.
Perhaps some pressure might be brought to bare (by threatening their licenses) for retailers who have stores in Scotland, but for a company which has no presence in Scotland other than mail order deliveries, it would seem to be an opportunity too good to miss.
Alas, here in Ireland, we are looking at following Scotland’s lead, and implement a minimum price too. Of course the ptb are trying to show that it won’t have much of an effect (thanks to our eye watering duties already added into the price). Of course, once this has been implemented, there is zero chance they will leave the price at it’s current level.
Chris M
“You can find perfectly drinkable wine in any Spanish supermarket for €1.50 a bottle.”
Tolerable perhaps, but “perfectly drinkable” is probably over-stating it. I find €3.50+ usually gets you a decent white – such as Barbadillo’s Castillo de San Diego at €3.75. But I find over €6 is necessary for a decent red, though €10+ for a decent rioja or ribera del duero.
Those are all good buys, Theo, but I was thinking of local wine not from the major wine-producing areas, like this one from Aragon. It’s gone up, it was €1.50 in May :).
In Fraserburgh (on the far NE) fish exporting lorries going through France would fill up on drink on the way back( all within EU guidelines of course)
Now those numerous lorries were going every day so just think how much booze was coming back!
So do they really think the occupants of the Buckie triangle are not going to arrange for a quick drive to the first off-licence to stock up? Or even worse carry on but spend less on other things? So their health issues get worse.
Really stupid move by Nicola. We aren’t a Latin country who have cafes and moderate wine drinking culture. Nor are we likely to be that EVER. We are typically north European and just like the Scandis, North Germans and the English we drink to excess. All this does is mean we spend less on other things!
Other than making the poor poorer and more unhappy what do the SNP Dictators and the health nazis achieve?
In other words – Sod All, Zilch, Nothing
I’ve emailed Ruthie asking if they oppose and if not, why not.
Sorry, Chris M, but I can’t get the link to the Aragon wine to work…
Jim,
“How does this affect those mail order wine clubs then? Whats to stop a company selling the cheap stuff as much as the expensive stuff direct to the consumer, just from outside Scotland, and sending it in by courier? Indeed would it be legal to have a warehouse of cheap booze in Scotland and deliver it to Scottish customers, if they ordered from and paid an English firm?”
I can’t decide if this is SNP politicians being ignorant of 2nd and higher order effects or they’re using it as a thin end of the wedge, knowing the prols won’t be organised and then they’ll gradually up the MUP to drag in the middle classes in a boiling frog move.
Sorry, Theo – I stuffed up the embedded link:
http://vinoymuchomas.com/585-villalta-rosado.html
from Calatayud.
I don’t claim it’s the greatest rosado ever, but perfectly potable and the equal of anything you’ll find in the UK for under £10. My usual trick is to find a good plain eatery that offers the usual “3 courses + water + wine for €15” and see what wine they’re serving – those guys usually know their stuff!
I was working in Madrid in 1987-88 when the Gran Reservas from ’81 and ’82 were everywhere. Happy days!
The Porridge Wogs import Buckfast by the mega-gallon. Presumably it’ll now be bought direct from Cornwall in English Pounds rather than the funny Scottish ones in local shops.
Be great for business if you are a small shop keeper in Glasgow.
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