David Cameron - Using Beer Prices As Collective Punishment

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy"

Thomas Jefferson

In an earlier post it was noted that under the outdated Parliamentary system the British Prime Minister has powers that turn some of the worlds notorious dictators green with envy.

The current Prime Minister David Cameron recognises the effectiveness of these powers and is determined to use them in order to bring about his vision of how the country should be.

To remind ourselves, David Cameron is part of a remote, wealthy metropolitan elite who have lived their entire lives in a closed circle of like minded friends who were, and still are, totally divorced from the real world of the people they govern.

By his words and actions David Cameron demonstrates his contempt for views of the very people he is sworn to serve.

The majority of the British people do not want further integration into a European superstate they want out of the European Union or at the very least they want a referendum on the issue.

David Cameron is personally committed to Europe so therefore he will not allow a referendum because he fears the result will not be the one that he wants.

Likewise the majority of the people together with religious leaders of all faiths believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.

David Cameron believes passionately in homosexual marriage so he is determined to rush through legislation at the earliest possible opportunity.

The British people believe that now is not the time to be spending billions of taxpayer money on foreign aid,  much of which ends up in the Swiss bank accounts of African despots,  while people are struggling with austerity at home.

David Cameron's contempt for the people is on display when he not only pledges to carry on with this largess but to double it and enshrine the new spending figure into British law.

David Cameron is now going to use these dictatorial powers and ignore the British people once again by dictating a minimum price for alcoholic beverages.

He is using the binge drinking culture of a minority of young people as an excuse to raise prices for everyone including those people who enjoy a bottle of wine at home with their dinner or who hold a backyard BBQ for family and friends.

This intransigence by Cameron will raise prices for the millions of responsible, well behaved, law abiding people who indulge in one of Britain's favourite pastimes of spending an evening with convivial company at the pub or indulging in harmless back garden barbecues in the summer.

Spending time at the local pub is an integral part of British culture but unfortunately not a part of the culture of Prime Minister Cameron and his champagne quaffing elite.

As a PR man Cameron's visits to a pub are stage managed and usually accompanied a camera crew.

There is a consensus outside the closed circle of friends that Cameron has appointed as his policy advisers, that minimum pricing will do nothing to stop the binge drinking and the city centre misbehavior which only takes place at weekends. This consensus includes some of his own government ministers, backbench MP's and more importantly the British people.

There are already laws on the statute book to deal with public drunkenness that the government refuses enforce because it offends their metropolitan liberal sensitivities.

Drunks would be hauled off the streets, thrown into the back of the police paddy wagon and then deposited in a cell for the night. In the morning they would face a variety of charges including drunk and disorderly, causing an affray, actual bodily harm, urinating in public or a combination of them all before appearing before the beak ( a magistrate) in the morning for punishment. It was tough and degrading but effective.

Increasing booze prices on the majority because of bad behavior by a minority is nothing other than collective punishment. This is an extreme form of punishment usually employed by arrogant politicians who have accumulated too much power or by outright dictators.

There is a second worrying aspect to this price increase policy:

Home Office minister and Cameron mouthpiece Damien Green tried another angle to justify the unjustifiable while at the same time letting the cat out of the bag by stating that  " it is a fact of economics and indeed a fact of life that if you put the price of a particular product up, demand for it goes down ".

The implications of this statement are enormous and it gives an indication of an agenda which is not in the public domain.

This statement confirms that the government is indulging in social engineering with the intention of a cultural transformation away from the traditional pub culture by using a price increase to suppress demand for a particular product i.e booze.

This transformation of culture is confirmed by the thirty thousand or so pubs that are closing annually with the consequent loss of thousands of private sector jobs.

If an increase in price suppresses demand then the government are deliberately running down whole industries including the aviation sector with the loss of thousands of highly paid jobs by continually increasing Air Passenger Duty, they are also running down the railways by ever increasing rail fares way above the level of inflation.

If an increase in prices suppresses demand then the reverse is true, so they could solve the country's lack of economic growth by cutting VAT and other and in doing so increase demand.

Damien Green has inadvertently allowed the country a peep behind the curtain. Decreasing prices and taxes gives the people more disposable income and this empowers them to make choices that better suit themselves and their families with the result that they are less dependent on the government.

A prosperous people making their own decisions independent of government strikes fear into the heart of every politician who currently enjoy taxpayer subsidised booze in the nine bars of the Westminster Parliament despite the appalling drunken behavior of some so called Honourable Members.