It’s far from being the biggest contributor to the misery inflicted on us by the Tories over the past 13 years. All the same, there’s something cruel about the timing of the latest government-sponsored penalisation of one of life’s simple pleasures: a huge increase in wine duty rates that comes into force during the steepest decline in living standards since the 1950s.
The hike, which will see 44p added to most bottles of still wine from 1 August – extra vindictiveness points for landing in the middle of the school holidays – is the consequence of an inflation-indexed rise in duty and the effects of the application of a new system of alcohol taxation based on alcoholic strength.
