Tim Worstall

And the courage of a newspaper to print such joyous prose: “There are some ideas so absurd,” said George Orwell, “that only an intellectual could believe them.” There are other ideas, even absurderer, that only The Conversation could deem worthy of public discourse. The Convo, a sort of undergrad Onan the Barbarian’s soggy biscuit circle [...]

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Research has suggested a 45p minimum price could reduce drinking by 4.3%, potentially saving 2,000 lives within a decade. This was why the idea had such strong backing from the medical profession. May, the former health secretary Andrew Lansley, and the education secretary, Michael Gove, have opposed the proposals on grounds that the impact on [...]

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Dear Lord this is dreadful: As a professor of marketing who has been doing research into the social and commercial aspects of alcohol consumption for some time, I have tended to sit on the fence on the issue of minimum pricing. However, at a time like this I cannot but feel disappointed that the government [...]

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Sir Ian Gilmore, the AHA’s chair, said action was especially urgent given that UK teenagers drink much more than the European average. I don’t know whether that is true or not but let us assume that it is. So, what are the actions that need to be taken then? It wants ministers to set the [...]

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OK, so people do, umm, “misremember” how much they drink. And if we look at the total amount that is sold we find out that some people, somewhere, are drinking more than the surveys say people drink. Nationwide surveys that purport to show the ‘average’ man and women drink much less than the recommended weekly [...]

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If implemented, the Prime Minister’s proposal for a 45p minimum price per unit will have the “biggest impact” on those who drink at home, according to academics. It will end supermarket offers – such as three bottles of wine for £10, or multi-buy deals on crates of beer – that are very popular with middle-class [...]

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We get confirmation of the fact that the “safe drinking guidelines” are bollocks: This is what Dr Smith has said on the matter: “David Barker was the epidemiologist on the committee and his line was that ‘we don’t really have any decent data whatsoever and it’s impossible to say what’s safe and what isn’t’. So [...]

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An interesting little email I received this morning: Dear Mr Worstall, I wonder whether you know that your website is blocked at (at least one branch of) Costa Coffee. I was disconcerted to discover this yesterday – apparently your site is a “known alcohol website”, whatever the hell that means, and thus blocked by Costa [...]

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The Prime Minister claimed that “a family with a reasonable drinking habit” was “actually subsidising the binge drinker” because supermarkets were increasing the price of food to fund cuts in the cost of wine, beer and cider. The comments, to a group of factory workers in north Wales, provoked astonishment from supermarkets last night. The [...]

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Protesters from the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) brought a pub sign to Parliament yesterday to lobby for an end to annual above-inflation tax increases on beer. Camra believes the beer duty escalator, which will raise the price of a pint by 2 per cent above inflation each year until 2014, is contributing to the [...]

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Political and economic transition is often blamed for Russia’s 40% surge in deaths between 1990 and 1994. Highlighting that increases in mortality occurred primarily among alcohol-related causes and among working-age men (the heaviest drinkers), this paper investigates an alternative explanation: the demise of the 1985-1988 Gorbachev Anti-Alcohol Campaign. Using archival sources to build a new [...]

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This minimum alcohol pricing. It’ll add to inflation. Implementation of a minimum unit price at any level will increase prices and therefore inflation. As shown in Table 4 the impact of a 45p MUP is estimated to be a +0.2ppts, based on the weight of off-trade alcohol sold in the Consumer Prices Index. Benefits are [...]

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The European Commission has sent a nine-page legal opinion to the British Government warning that minimum prices are illegal – and that the Treasury should increase duty on alcoholic drinks if it wishes to raise the price. However, ministers appear to have decided to defy the legal warning and yesterday unveiled proposals to introduce a [...]

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What is it with these idiots? Even if we grant them their contention that cheap booze kills, that the poor should be deprived of their pleasures to suit the puritans, that booze prices must rise for the sake of the children. Even if we grant them all of that minimum pricing is illegal. And not [...]

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As Frank Sinatra put it (probably after a few sherberts): “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.” Tsk. Martin also giving us the line “I’m not drunk if I can lie on the floor without holding on”.

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I’ve not problem with the idea that Papa makes some money and his kids are therefore privileged. I’m sure it’s one of the reasons that incentivises Papa to go invent, innovate, to the benefit of us all. But Dear Lord I do hate those who are so priviliged being boors. Just been subject to it [...]

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The old Anheuser-Busch insisted on using whole grains of rice in its beer. AB InBev was fine with the broken kind. “Our purchasing of rice has to do with how fresh the rice is, not whether it is whole or broken,” says Vallis. Whole or broken may not matter. But rice? Beer? Yes, I know, [...]

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OK Daily Record, out with it: shouldn’t you actually publish a story about the gathering rumours about Alex Salmond’s drinking instead of merely leaving sly hints? I have no love for the portly first Minister, but if he is an alcoholic then he needs help and not a conspiracy of silence. Scotland’s about the same [...]

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Supermarkets ‘to be banned from discounting multiple wine bottles’ Supermarkets will be banned from discounting multiple bottles of wine under Government plans to be set out within days. The Coalition’s alcohol strategy — expected to be launched next week — will propose that special deals which encourage shoppers to buy in bulk should be outlawed, [...]

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Another little observation about booze prices from your travelling correspondent. In Usti nad Labem, in the posh pub that all the good looking birds go to, a 0.5 litre Pilsener Urquel is 35 Crowns. OK, Usti is a bit regional and all that. A bottle of same in the supermarket is 20 crowns or so. [...]

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