We need people power

The worst kind of bad news usually comes like a lightning bolt from the blue. A shock to the system that takes some time to get your head around. 

That certainly seems to be the mood within the drinks industry this week. Where were you when you heard the Chancellor was planning on stinging another 8% in duty on alcohol - from next Monday - in his pre-Budget statement?

Ironically I found out directly from the horse's mouth as it were as I jumped on a train and bumped into Jeremy Beadles, chief executive of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association who was still trying to digest the news from the Treasury.What makes this increase so hard to stomach is that it came with no dressed-up warning from the powers that be.

The changes in VAT that this duty hike, along with similar hits on tobacco and petrol, is supposed to part pay for may get the great British shopper spending again, but it is another hammer blow as the changes will have to be to implement into pricing plans. 

The clearest sign that this government does not know how its decisions affect the running of UK business is retail leaders of the calibre of BHS's Sir Philip Green and Marks & Spencer's Sir Stuart Rose are warning the Treasury the changes in VAT cannot be implemented in time for the December 1 deadline. 

But we are where we are. If it was not carat gold clear before it should be now. The anti-alcohol health lobby is winning the argument with the Treasury. Sir Ian Gilmore and the Alcohol Health Alliance is succeeding in making alcohol as easy a target as tobacco and no-one in the public eye is standing up for us. 

We need to take matters more into our own hands and there is no better "changer" of political opinion than those who have the real power in the ballot box. 

The whisky lobby group has shown what can be done. By linking its position to the economic climate and threat of losing jobs in Scotland it has won a reprieve on duty hikes this week. 

We need to galvanise public support. The alcohol debate is currently a runaway train and we need to do everything we can to not only put the brakes on, but send it a completely different direction.  

Richard Siddle, Editor, Harpers 

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