What a kick in the b@*&^%*s Mr Darling!

Well, there you have it. Beer duty is going up by 4p a pint, plus of course the VAT on that. After a year of escalating costs, this really is the icing on the cake for breweries up and down the UK. Can you imagine the German or Belgian or Czech government increasing the duty on beer by such an amount? No, they want to protect their historically important and economically vital brewing industry.

I don't want to get enmeshed in party politics. This issue is more important than petty men making petty points in their petty committees (and claiming vast salries and expenses to do so). No this is about equity and fairness. Every single day, the Treasury is losing over £1 million in beer taxes and four pubs are closing..... that is more than 120 a month! People are now drinking 1 million fewer pints a day compared with last year. That trend will continue.

Supermarkets will continue to sell at below cost and squeeze suppliers' margins so hard they need to make cost savings by chucking people on the redundancy scrapheap.

And you know what.... binge drinking will continue unabated!

This blunt instrument of duty hikes will NOT 'cure' binge drinking. It merely penalises the majority of level-headed and peaceful beer drinkers up and down this land. And remember, Darling promised more hikes in future years at 2% above the prevailing rate of inflation!

This is not a doomsday scenario.... this is happening NOW! In the UK, a country with one of the finest brewing heritages on the face of the planet.

It could make you weep.

Come on Darling, kick us harder! You might just drive us all to drink!