I guess the Budget was only what was to be expected from Alistair Darling, a man so grey that on entering a room he turns John Major into living Technicolor. The question must be posed: how can someone who sucks the very lifeblood out of the nation still look so grey? Just how much blood does he and this government need to become something resembling human? It baffles me, and I sometimes wonder if I am going to wake up soon from a terrible nightmare.
Within the past week or so we have learned that 57 pubs are now closing down every month, and that will only be as a result of this government's misguided Nanny policies. Most of the pubs closing are the respectable time-served meeting places once used by large sections of our communities, the local pubs, and not the wild ones we so often read about today plagued with the binge drinkers that cause mayhem. Working men's clubs are closing all around the country too. It seems the government's determination to destroy every last part of our communities goes on unabated.
We have seen Post Offices closing after the MPs voted for this to happen, only for them to then publicly pretend to support those people trying to save them. Community Halls, many having survived more than a century and where community groups from toddlers to pensioners have met for all that time, are now the subject of so many (stupid) Health & Safety Rules and Regulations that they are being forced to close at an alarming rate.
Bingo Halls, for more than fifty years another popular community meeting place, are having to close too as the smoking laws, the jackpot laws, and the refusal of the government to stop "double-taxing" them bites harder and harder. Bingo players pay more in tax than punters at the bookmakers due to a double tax burden of VAT and gross profits tax and, under the recent changes to gambling legislation, the clubs' licence fees have increased whilst the number of jackpot machines they are allowed has decreased. All of this has been deliberate government action - and all of it is killing another one of our community meeting places. The government's objective could not be more plain to see.
And now it is the turn of our public houses. Our locals. Reeling from the Draconian smoking ban that has turned patrons into persecuted second class citizens, many of them deserting the pubs, and suffering from the rising cost of their alcoholic beverages as a worldwide shortage sends the price of wheat and barley through the roof, whilst at the same time the price of fuel rockets, the licensed trade pleaded with the Chancellor for a tax reduction to save it from even more rapid closures. On the pretext of dealing with the young binge drinkers, the pleas were ignored.
Does anybody really believe putting a few coppers on the price of a cut-price alcoholic drink in a supermarket, one still cheaper than a bottle of water, will stop even one youngster from consuming it? Of course not. But because of the way things work, barrel wastages and other things, those few coppers in a supermarket can easily translate into perhaps 6p to 8p on a pint in many a quiet and respectable licensed establishment.
We have a national problem with drunken kids, and no matter how expensive alcohol may become the price will not stop them from drinking it - however any difficulty they have in funding their lifestyle will without a shadow of doubt proportionately send the crime rates into orbit. We know it and the Chancellor knows it, but that has not stopped him from using the binge drinking as an excuse to extract his pints of blood from a nation that has so few blood-filled veins left.
I'm sure dear old Tony Hancock is sitting on my shoulder at this moment, for I can hear those immortal words from The Blood Donor rattling around in my head: "A pint? Why, that's very nearly an armful!"
Smokers have been hit hard too. They remain the living proof that no amount of taxation or rules will break a habit, or even have anything more than a very short term effect. Forget all the government and NHS spin, the number of cigarettes sold following all those millions spent on advertising, help-lines, counsellors, and laws passed to stop smoking has only dropped by a mere 2%, and much of that drop is probably accounted for by the increase in black-market cigarettes. These figures are borne out by the tobacco companies (whose profits have increased) and the declared sales from the regional wholesalers. The sad thing is though: if the NHS had stuck to what it should be doing, tending to the sick, it could probably have cut those lengthy treatment-waiting times and saved many more lives with all that money it has squandered on some pathetic attempt at being Matriarchal. Horses for courses - they should get back on track!
This budget has (with the changes in income tax set up by Gordon Brown last year coming into force) hit the poor people the hardest, and has missed hurting only the rich. The one-off