Exeter University students joined our campaign to Call Time on Duty at John Gandy’s wine bar off the cobble streets of central Exeter. With glasses of wine in their hands, they called on the Chancellor George Osborne to axe further rises in duty on wine and spirits in this country—and bring it in line with more reasonable rates of alcohol tax in Europe. Continue Reading

Office for Budget Responsibility economic models replicated by the Financial Times have revealed a new £20 billion black hole in the public finances. The news comes on top of the repeated deterioration in deficit forecasts since 2010 and means that the public sector would potentially continue living beyond its means until 2020.

Our War on Waste spending factbook highlighted the deterioration of deficit forecasts for 2014-15 in the graph shown above (click here to share it on Facebook, and here for Twitter). It’s clear that while the economy seems to be recovering, particularly with respect to private sector employment figures, the public finances are still a mess and tough decisions have to be made on spending.

This isn’t necessary only to close our still huge deficit but also to allow room for the tax cuts the country needs to sharpen economic incentives, boost growth and ease the financial burden on taxpayers. Mr Osborne should look again at spending when he delivers his budget in two weeks. It’s time he declared a War on Waste.

London School of Economics students raised their glasses to our Call Time on Duty campaign. In the historic George IV pub in Portugal Street, opposite the LSE, they asked the Chancellor George Osborne to cut the duty on wine and spirits in this country, some of the highest alcohol tax rates in Europe. Continue Reading

On the steps of HM Treasury, the TPA’s South West grassroots coordinator Tim Newark and Campaign Director, Robert Oxley, handed in a petition to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Petition calls on George Osborne to cut the tax on cider. The petition is part of the TPA’s general campaign to give drinkers a break in the UK and cut the duty on alcohol. Most of the 2,000 signatures on the petition come from the South West, home to a great many cider producers.

‘We gathered these signatures at county fairs and cider festivals across the country over the last few months,’ says Tim Newark. ‘From students to cider producers to local MPs, we’ve had a very positive reaction to our campaign. Last year, the Chancellor acted positively on our MashBeerTax campaign by cutting the beer duty escalator. We hope he will do the same for the cider duty escalator this year.’ Continue Reading