Supporters from throughout Cardiff and South Wales joined our Mash Beer Tax event in the Welsh Capital on Tuesday night. The gathering included students from Cardiff University who all raised beer mats at the appropriately named Queens Vaults, Cardiff City Centre. The students, like those at the Exeter, Bristol and Nottingham events, find themselves frustrated at the prospect of tax increases on one of their few pleasures.

The event in Cardiff not only allowed for a voicing of concerns at ever increasing taxes but also for Mr Jon Barrett the owner of JW Barrett pubs to voice his direct concern. “Pubs across the country are being savaged by more regulation and higher taxes”, he said. “Higher taxes on beer are also  isolating some of the most vulnerable in society as they struggle to meet with people in their local communities”

Similar concerns were raised by Caerphilly resident Mr John Evans. “Higher taxes on beer are threatening customer confidence. It is well known that breweries are cutting down on the alcohol content in their products just to avoid higher levies, this proving to be a raw deal for all concerned”

Those present were also shown the mashbeertax.org facility on smart phones allowing attendees to contact their local MP and voice their concerns. This was something many of them had never done before and remarked how easy it was.

Make sure you write to your MP using mashbeertax.org and let them know your views.

If you’re a pub landlord and you’d like to put up a poster in your pub to tell people about MashBeerTax.org (the campaign to stop yet another increase in drinks tax in the Budget) click the image below to download and print one out!

Signing the MashBeerTax.org campaign will send an email to your local MP to let them know you don’t want taxes on drinks to go up yet again.

Click here or on the picture above to download the MashBeerTax poster

Local shopkeepers joined the TaxPayers’ Alliance in Goring-on-Thames yesterday to protest against the latest increase in business rates. Business rates went up by 4.6 per cent in 2011 and 5.6 per cent in 2012, and they are set to rise by a further 2.6 per cent in April. Imposing a substantial rates hike for the third year running can only lead to more empty shops on high streets and fewer chances of work, especially for young people.

Here are few things you can do to help us win this campaign:

• Write to your MP. We’ve made it quick and easy for you. Just visit freezebusinessrates.org
• Write to your local newspaper to raise awareness of the campaign. Make sure you mention freezebusinessrates.org.
• Post a link to freezebusinessrates.org on Facebook and Twitter
• Join one of our protests. We have more protests planned this week in Southend-on-Sea, Loughborough, and Grantham. E-mail me for more details.

Please do whatever you can do to help. It does make a difference.

It’s very nearly forty years since the UK joined the European Economic Community, the body which has now evolved into the European Union. The last – and indeed only – time that Britons gave their assent to our membership was way back in 1975, meaning that no-one under the age of 55 has ever been able properly to register their support for, or opposition to, UK membership.

Public dissatisfaction with the cost of the EU and the massive burdens it places on the UK and businesses here remains as high as ever. Now, with the prospect of a new referendum on the issue being mooted (albeit not for another few years), people are increasingly wondering what the future holds for UK-EU relations and what form they might take if a decision is made to withdraw from the EU in its current form.

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Many local authorities are using the excuse of cuts in central government grants to increase Council Tax. But some are actually getting on with delivering good services without reaching into taxpayers’ pockets for even more cash.

The City of Westminster has frozen council tax for the sixth year in a row. Taking inflation into account, this amounts to a 23 per cent real terms cut over six years. The freeze will give Westminster the lowest Council Tax in the country and has been made possible by outsourcing, sharing senior staff with neighbouring councils and trimming direct funding of the arts.

As Westminster councillor J P Floru said:

Why not use the greater efficiency of the private sector to deliver public services?  It is a complete mystery.  Westminster also achieved substantial savings by merging administrative jobs with neighbouring Wandsworth and Kensington & Chelsea – what are other councils waiting for?