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Four cans of lager for less than a quid

After I read in the paper that my local MP, Jake Berry had been contacted by a local nannying group and asked for his approval for minimum alcohol pricing, I exchanged a few letters with him in an attempt to talk him our of the idea.

The conversation can be found here, here and here.

Needless to say, the man is fully behind minimum alcohol pricing and his responses were simply a mashup of all the usual scare quotes and soundbites.

One of his quotes was taken directly from the home office website:
Alcohol has been so heavily discounted that it is now possible to buy a can of lager for as little as 20p and a two litre bottle of cider for £1.69.
Now I know what alcohol he is referring to and I've no doubt you do too, dear reader, but just to be absolutely certain, I fired off an FOI and asked for a source to prove these figures.

It came back today, and sure enough, four cans of Tesco value lager costs 80p and a two litre bottle of Tesco value cider costs £1.69.

They provided a PDF with screenshots from the Tesco website which can be viewed here. (The letter that accompanied it is also available if you are interested, but due to the personal info on it, please email me for a copy)

Tesco value lager is 2% alcohol and tastes like dishwater. The cider is pretty dire aswell. I still have half a bottle of the Sainsburys version that I bought to try but could not finish because it's rank.

MPs whack on about people being able to get drunk for a quid, but this rubbish is so weak your stomach would not be able to hold enough of it to get you drunk.

Stephan Dorrell MP recently showed his contempt for the alcohol industry by saying that they don't deserve brownie points for participating in the responsibility deal.
"We do not believe that reducing the alcohol in some lagers from 5% to 4.8%, for example, will have any significant impact. If the industry does not bring forward more substantial proposals than this it risks being seen as paying only lip service to the need to reduce the health harms caused by alcohol."
Reducing the alcohol content of Stella lager is scorned because it is not going far enough. Sell a can of lager at 2% alcohol are you are scorned for selling it too cheaply.

Aren't these people good at cherry picking facts and mixing them with lies and half truths to paint the picture they need to impose more taxes and rules on us?

I'm sure Jake Berrys reply to my FOI will just be another off the shelf quote that totally ignores my point, just like everything else he has said to me so far.

What's the point in even having these idiots?

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