Taxing alcopops: the Australian experience 

Taxing alcopops is one of Tory ideas designed to stop youth drinking. “They’ve done this kind of thing in Germany and Australia and it has had dramatic effects,” George Osborne told Andrew Marr last March. Just how dramatic is now clear, with the evidence now in from Australia. Jacking up pre-mixed drink prices by 70% cut their consumption by 30%, but pushed bottled spirit sales up by 46% as kids mixed their own. And – surprise, surprise – the people pour far more generous measures than they were getting with the Bacardi Breezers. Result: a sharp 10% hike in the amount of alcohol consumed in Australia, the precise opposite of what was planned.

But there is some consolation for its government. The extra boozing means some A$600,000 a month extra in duties. This report in The Australian newspaper has all the tragicomic details. It’s such a shambles that the Australian Senate may now overturn the Rudd administration’s disastrous idea.