UK Business News

“Boycott corporate and anti-working class Tesco’s” says Free Market Civil Liberties Think Tank.

That is the message from the Libertarian Alliance concerning measures by the new government to stop shops in England & Wales from selling alcohol at below cost price. I would like to think that it is a tongue in cheek response to the government plans that have received support from Tesco.

The outspoken Director of Libertarian Alliance, Dr Sean Gabb, made the following comments in London this week:

“The Government’s proposal, and the welcome given it by Tesco’s, amount to an attack on the poor. The ruling class politicians who continually whine about alcohol will not be affected by minimum pricing or the abolition of special offers. I might add that none of them can be affected by such laws. Income aside, anyone who lies his way into Parliament can look forward to round the clock drinking in the Palace of Westminster of untaxed alcohol.

But the measures will hurt poor people, for whom alcohol will become cripplingly expensive and hard to find. They have the same right to drink as the rest of us. Bearing in mind the problems willed on them by our exploitative ruling class, they often have a greater need to drink.

The claim that drinking ’causes’ public disorder is nonsense. Alcohol does not run about the streets. People do. If people are making nuisances of themselves, the police should be reminded that they are no longer New Labour’s equivalent of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and told to start protecting life and property again.

But, going back to Tesco’s, this is also another attempt by a joint stock limited liability corporation – which has no right to exist – to limit competition and raise profits. We have no doubt the Company will use the good publicity got from supporting this wicked policy to win planning permission appeals to build more superstores. The incidental misery into which millions of our poorest fellow citizens will be thrown never crosses their privileged, high-salaried minds.

On behalf of the Libertarian Alliance, I call on all progressive people of good will to boycott Tesco until it stops supporting this attack on the poor and on free competition.”

We would point out that while we find this article amusing, it does deliver a strong relevant message, not about alcohol particularly, but moreover the manipulative nature of big business on national law making.

On the context of the story, I firmly believe that selling any product for under cost price is fundamentally wrong in business, particularly as the customer will be paying over the odds for other products from the same supplier to counter act the losses.

As a teetotaller I very much resent the fact that my shopping bill is subsidising others who do purchase alcoholic products or anything else at below cost price – whoever they are.