Mark Daniels: What they give with one hand, they take away with the other...
If you watched Soccer AM on Saturday morning you will have seen Paul Daniels, making a couple of lewd jokes that made Helen Chamberlain blush, talking about bringing Wizbit back - and doing a card trick that is often done by short-con artists in city centres and outside sports stadiums.
The trick Paul did is commonly known as Find The Lady, otherwise known as the Three-Card Monte, in which the victim - the person on the receiving end of the con - is tricked in to trying to find a particular card. Usually it's the Queen, and in Paul's demonstration it was the Queen of Hearts between the Ten of Spades and the Ten of Clubs.
It's a simple trick, really: the magician lets you guess correctly a few times at where the Queen is, building up your confidence, and then starts betting with you. As soon as you put the money down on the table, every time you think you've picked the Queen, you'll find it's one of the other cards. Paul demonstrated this very effectively, even bending the corner of the Queen to indicate which card it was - but later, when he turned over the 'marked' card, it was one of the tens.
Alistair Darling has pulled a similar trick on us today. He's been teasing us all weekend with little snippets that he was going to do something wonderful with VAT, essentially lowering it to ease the economy a bit.
Indeed, 2.5% was duly cut off the rate of VAT duty, which effectively equates to 6p off a £3.00 pint of beer. In reality, it was hardly a move that was ever going to help pubs and a few pennies off a pint of beer was unlikely to ever make a difference to whether Joe Bloggs and his family would come out and use the village local a bit more, but at least it was indicative of a government trying to help - or, at least, one thinking of having an election in the near future and looking to win a bit of confidence back.
Some pubs might not even have passed the rate cut on across all their products, preferring instead to give themselves a little relief in these difficult times. And who could blame them, really?
But in a slight of hand that nobody saw coming, even with all the corners of the marked card turned up, Darling has taken our beloved industry and beaten it about the head with a sledgehammer once again. An 8% rise on alcohol duty due to come in on the same day the VAT rate is lowered is punitive in the extreme, more than compensating for what the government will lose in VAT revenues and virtually guaranteeing further job losses in the industry and pub closures in the months to come. And it's highly unlikely that this increase, due to come in to effect next Monday, will halt the Chancellor's stealth tax on alcohol that sees further, automatic rises in alcohol duty come the Budget in March 2009.
I know Paul Daniels very well, and he's a great person to have a conversation with. He's articulate, intelligent, witty and brilliant fun to have at a party. As a magician, he has kept literally millions of people entertained by his acts of sleight of hand. Naturally, he and Aunty Debs are welcome at my pub any time they are free to pop in.
Alistair Darling, on the other hand, is nothing more than a high street hustler, giving with one hand and taking away with the other. When a campaign ran earlier this year to ban him from every pub in the land, I abstained, preferring to invite him in and let him see the type of environment his castigatory tax policies were putting in jeopardy.
Today, however, I'm a signed-up member of the campaign.
