Kmflett's Blog

On Monday Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson held yet another press conference on this occasion to unveil a ‘plan’ to save pubs.

Farage announced Reform would reinstate the two child benefit cap (they had recently opposed) threatening large numbers of children with a lack of welfare and said this would help to pay for a 5p reduction in the price of pint.

Challenged to justify the costings behind this on the Today programme on Tuesday 30p Lee Anderson of course could not.

However a dose of reality was injected into matters by Wetherspoons Tim Martin. Alcohol duty rose at the beginning of February with the stated impact of increasing prices by 2p a pint.

Of course the reality is invariably different. Wetherspoons did not increase all prices but put 10p on a pint of cask beer and 15p on some other keg beers (although far from all). Spoons are noted for their keen pricing policy so they will remain highly competitive in the market. The increase reflected not just the duty increase but rising costs across the board.

However Farage’s 5p a pint reduction would hardly make an impact. However since he drinks red wine and gin and tonic perhaps its not surprising he is out of touch with the price of a pint.