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Authors: Mike Ripley
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very small and there were two
dotted lines horizontally near the bottom of the screen. Each column had an arrow pointing towards the dotted lines. The colours were really cool.
‘This shows the beer duty in pence-per-pint in all the EU countries and this line would be a harmonised rate.’ He pointed to the lower dotted line. ‘Now that’s only a
couple of pence per pint and look where we are.’
His finger rested on one of the flags on the screen and by holding a hand over my left eye I could see that he had picked out the Union Jack, way up near the top of the screen, flanked by the
Irish tricolour and the flags of Sweden and Finland.
‘Now that’s a long way to come down for these high tax countries so, as with value added tax, Europe agreed a target
rate
which countries could at least aim for. The low ones,
like France and Spain, would put their beer duty
up
to get to near that target, which is about 7p a pint, whilst the high tax countries should come
down
to meet the others coming up.
Guess what?’
Oh God, I hate the quiz part and he never said he would be asking questions afterwards.
‘What?’
‘It didn’t happen. Well, not here. It did everywhere else.’
‘You surprise me.’
‘I share your instinctive cynicism about pragmatic politicians.’
Did that mean I’d got something right? I tried to look world-weary and philosophical, rather than just weary.
‘Even worse,’ Murdo went on, ‘the gap is getting wider. Look closely. I’m sorry it’s a bit small but it really stands out when I do a presentation with a big
screen.’
‘You do this as a . . . a . . . presentation?’
I was gripped with an image of Murdo boring the pants off the Seagrave Women’s Institute in the church hall on a wet February night.
‘Oh yes, it’s my party piece. I’m a bit of an expert on the subject, though I say it myself. Of course, you’re only seeing a bit of the whole thing. When I showed it to
the Treasury Select Committee last week I concentrated on the failings of their macro-economic model when it came to disposable income and the positive effect of a duty cut on the Gross National
Product. Not to mention the Retail Price Index.’
‘Right,’ I said slowly, trying to remember not to mention the Retail Price Index. ‘So what am I supposed to be looking at?’
‘The UK column. See? Every other country is moving towards the target rate for beer duty except us. The Irish, the Danes, the Swedes are all coming down and the French and Spanish and so
on are all coming up. Every single country is moving towards that line except Britain. We’re going
away
from it. Our government is continuing to put our beer duty up when it should be
reducing it. So now we’re not just out of line with our partners in Europe, we’re
way
out of line. That means a big differential in tax which gives the smugglers more incentive
and more profit and makes smuggling one of the fastest growing businesses in the UK. There.’
At the flick of a finger the screen dissolved and turned into a cartoon graphic. One half of the screen was a line-drawing or print depicting eighteenth-century pirates, complete with hooks,
eye-patches, cutlasses and flintlock pistols, off-loading wooden casks from a beached longboat and rolling them up a beach to a cave. It could have been ripped from an illustrated edition of
Treasure Island
. The other half showed a scanned-in colour picture of a procession of white Ford Transit vans rolling off a car ferry docked under the White Cliffs of Dover.
‘On the eve of the twenty-first century,’ Murdo said portentously, ‘we have reinvented the eighteenth-century crime of smuggling.’
‘But if they go round looking like that, even the cops should be able to spot them. Maybe they could get one of the parrots to grass them up.’
Murdo frowned and I had the distinct feeling that my credit at the bar was in jeopardy. Then his face brightened.
‘Oh, I see. Yes, an excellent
dotted lines horizontally near the bottom of the screen. Each column had an arrow pointing towards the dotted lines. The colours were really cool.
‘This shows the beer duty in pence-per-pint in all the EU countries and this line would be a harmonised rate.’ He pointed to the lower dotted line. ‘Now that’s only a
couple of pence per pint and look where we are.’
His finger rested on one of the flags on the screen and by holding a hand over my left eye I could see that he had picked out the Union Jack, way up near the top of the screen, flanked by the
Irish tricolour and the flags of Sweden and Finland.
‘Now that’s a long way to come down for these high tax countries so, as with value added tax, Europe agreed a target
rate
which countries could at least aim for. The low ones,
like France and Spain, would put their beer duty
up
to get to near that target, which is about 7p a pint, whilst the high tax countries should come
down
to meet the others coming up.
Guess what?’
Oh God, I hate the quiz part and he never said he would be asking questions afterwards.
‘What?’
‘It didn’t happen. Well, not here. It did everywhere else.’
‘You surprise me.’
‘I share your instinctive cynicism about pragmatic politicians.’
Did that mean I’d got something right? I tried to look world-weary and philosophical, rather than just weary.
‘Even worse,’ Murdo went on, ‘the gap is getting wider. Look closely. I’m sorry it’s a bit small but it really stands out when I do a presentation with a big
screen.’
‘You do this as a . . . a . . . presentation?’
I was gripped with an image of Murdo boring the pants off the Seagrave Women’s Institute in the church hall on a wet February night.
‘Oh yes, it’s my party piece. I’m a bit of an expert on the subject, though I say it myself. Of course, you’re only seeing a bit of the whole thing. When I showed it to
the Treasury Select Committee last week I concentrated on the failings of their macro-economic model when it came to disposable income and the positive effect of a duty cut on the Gross National
Product. Not to mention the Retail Price Index.’
‘Right,’ I said slowly, trying to remember not to mention the Retail Price Index. ‘So what am I supposed to be looking at?’
‘The UK column. See? Every other country is moving towards the target rate for beer duty except us. The Irish, the Danes, the Swedes are all coming down and the French and Spanish and so
on are all coming up. Every single country is moving towards that line except Britain. We’re going
away
from it. Our government is continuing to put our beer duty up when it should be
reducing it. So now we’re not just out of line with our partners in Europe, we’re
way
out of line. That means a big differential in tax which gives the smugglers more incentive
and more profit and makes smuggling one of the fastest growing businesses in the UK. There.’
At the flick of a finger the screen dissolved and turned into a cartoon graphic. One half of the screen was a line-drawing or print depicting eighteenth-century pirates, complete with hooks,
eye-patches, cutlasses and flintlock pistols, off-loading wooden casks from a beached longboat and rolling them up a beach to a cave. It could have been ripped from an illustrated edition of
Treasure Island
. The other half showed a scanned-in colour picture of a procession of white Ford Transit vans rolling off a car ferry docked under the White Cliffs of Dover.
‘On the eve of the twenty-first century,’ Murdo said portentously, ‘we have reinvented the eighteenth-century crime of smuggling.’
‘But if they go round looking like that, even the cops should be able to spot them. Maybe they could get one of the parrots to grass them up.’
Murdo frowned and I had the distinct feeling that my credit at the bar was in jeopardy. Then his face brightened.
‘Oh, I see. Yes, an excellent
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