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Chancellor Philip Hammond has used his budget to freeze the duty on beer, wine and spirits, ensuring the alcohol the government is driving you to isn’t going to get any more expensive.
Hammond explained that the planned duty rises will be frozen, to allow citizens a brief respite from the unrelenting misery of life in modern Britain.
He told reporters, “There is a lot of bad news out there today, I understand that. Lower growth, productivity stalling, real wages falling, the fact that we’ve still not cleared the deficit we promised to eliminate way back in 2010 – but today, at least, your pint isn’t going to get any more expensive.
“So when you look around and see that everything is shit, know that right now we’re not going to make going to the pub to drown your sorrows any more painfully expensive than it already is.
“Well, for those of you that can still afford to go to the pub, obviously.
“The rest of you can take solace in the fact that a bottle of wine or scotch at home won’t be getting any more expensive either, so you can also drown your sorrows at prices that reflect the economic catastrophe that is 2017 – not a penny more.
“Of course, if our administration has left you absolutely destitute, and you currently rely on that horrible cheap white cider to get drunk, then I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you – there will be some new legislation next year to specifically to target that ‘poor people piss-up juice’, and it’s going to get more expensive.
“So, if we’ve driven you to drink, you can thank us – unless we’ve driven you so far into poverty that you can no longer afford middle-class alcohol, in which case we’ve just fucked you all over again.”
