Tag Archives: beer. CAMRA

Opinion: The escalator that’s pricing beer into insensibility

Today, upward of a thousand enthusiasts are descending on Westminster to demand protection for one of the nation’s great heritage assets. Beer.

The Labour government of old was unduly fond of price and tax escalators, which generally take the form of retail price index plus a bit more. I have always regarded this as a rather odd fiscal mechanism because it simply creates a circularity that feeds itself. Costs go up, the RPI duly rises, and costs go up again as a result.

It beats me why the coalition has decided to maintain this blunt policy. Fiscal escalators

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 10 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Steve Trevethan
    Thank you for a bravely honest article! Might the “leadership” which took the L. D party into enforced student debts/loans have been confused about the i...
  • David Le Grice
    Weird that this appears to be the first LDV article about this, and the first time anyone in the parliamentary party has spoken up about it (as far as I'm aware...
  • Jack
    Delighted to see conference overwhelmingly reject the EHRC guidance (they don't deserve three quarters of that name - I accept they are a commission). People ar...
  • Geoff Reid
    Somebody had to say it eventual!y. Thank you Tom for inviting us to be honest on this matter....
  • Hywel
    Important point there Paul. For all the angst about 'lack of cut through' that has pretty much been the case for most of the time the LIb Dems existed except f...