Forget UB40 how about DB40

So much excitement this week as I've got another party to organise. First though back in February as a shameless attempt to get the tories to realise they were not the party of tax I suggested waiving the VAT on fuel. Its taken a while but they're getting with the programme. My next top tip for them is to revive the hospitality secotor by doing away with the tax on drink. Let's face it, the next few years are going to be tough as fuck, especially for the poor and those in the dole offices. Our unemployment has never been higher if you include all those people on zero hour contracts who are doing, yes you've guessed it, zero hours. I know a few people who juggle 5 zero hour contracts, some of you will know people who juggle 10 such useless contracts. This shows why employment in the country is booming. Everyone has a zero hour contract. My plan is to make those zero hours turn into real hours. Real hours mean government recieve taxation, especially from the poor who pay tax earlier than they used to since the tax free allowance was frozen. So what is this tax free plan for drink.

Its called the multiplier effect in economics but its this simple. If drink falls in price so does inflation, reducing the pressure on wage growth. If drink falls in price consumption increases. If consumption increases the bars and restaurants will be jumping. If the bars are jumping so are live venues for music. IF live venues are umping the atmosphere is electric, I'm thinking Transmission, I'm thinking dance dance dance dance dance to the radio No! I'm thinking DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE to the RADIO Yes it also means that people will be employed in the hospitality industry. During the first issue of Deadbeat in 1982 it was clear the tories wanted a service industry. THey wanted a return to the days of the serfs and SERVE SERVE SERVE SERVE SERVE To the Politico.....became a wee mantra especially later in the 80's during the poll tax debacle. I digress again. Abolish tax on Alcohol, give us back our pubs. I dont mind paying £6 a pint or £6.20 for a tin of San Miguel at the 02 recently watching SLF. It was jumping and I couldn't help chuckling as Jake and the gang did bang out the classics. 'Grab it and change it it's yours' has worked well but not sure we got far with some of the other stuff. Our collective voices disappeared as most took the LIV cash thinking 'there's always someone better off than you' as they embarked on that chase, never looking back. So what if we could return to 1980's pricing. It reminds me of issue #5 the October that us interview Roddy Frame and at another famous Dundee gig watch Dolphin run across the crowd, not surfing as much as stomping!

IF tax on drink is abolished and more people went into pubs as a result we'd all be more sociable and we'd get rid of this shower of bastards. They keep us in our houses, and we're not 'safe as houses' there, we are being banned from meeting collectively, except at the odd gig or football match. Revolution is harder to attain when everyone's at home on social media sending 3 words out looking for a fight. If it was 40 years ago "Somebody's gonna get their head kicked in tonight", was such a mantra surely 2022 will see the release of "Somebody's getting tweeted at tonight". In the first issue of Deadbeat we had a column called Hiccups. It was because we were always pissed.

As teenagers in 1982, you go drinking and try to avoid getting twatted. There would be glasses flying across the bar som etimes and genuinely you had to duck. I famously did at La Sorbonne when we were playing and an ashtray came my way. I cover the story in the Life Support section but I ducked and the drummer didn't! Watch out he's gonna twat you? loosely translated for 2022, 'he's gonna tweet ya baby' So back to the abolition of tax on drink. It could be Scotland's version of the Boston Tea Party! I'm sure we'd get some help from our Northumbrian pals. If you are serious about helping the hospitality industry and regenerating the city and town centres. If you are wanting to help small villages and rural communities give them back their pubs. The church, God bless them, is a busted flush. Father Christmas was a lovely concept and it worked well until we found out the world is more than 5000 years old, so the hub of our communities is our local sports clubs, miners and social clubs. Next up its the pub. All will be very grateful to have back the opportunity to socialise at a price they can pay. My Dad turned 90 this year. He's lucky, he can afford £20 for a night out as he only drinks 3 pints. He doesn't need to stagger far and so he has enough change for his taxi home. So the Tories are currently fighting it out over reducing tax to stimulate the economy. In the unlikely event that anyone reading this has a vote in the forthcoming election of the UK prime minister please ask them to abolish tax on drink. During the recent pandemic many gin distillers turned their stills over to the production of products useful in an age of sterilisation. Surely these people deserve not just applause but some tax free bonus. If you think how production could grow. We've been a service economy for nearly 40 years now since Margaret, Tony and Co dismantled the unions and manufacturing. They paved the way for the sale of our industries, their jobs and trademarks. I leave John Major and Mo Mowlem out here as they at least had listened to the lyrics for an alternative Ulster. The rest however, have made us a service tourist economy.

Drinks giant Diageo still does a lot of manufacturing and Whisky luckily is still made in the UK, although for how long I dont know. If Scotland owns the trademark and the post independence government adopts a zero tax on drink policy, how quickly will the tourist economy boom. We will have stills on every street corner. If we adopt a similar policy as the Netherlands on hash, we will be able to utilise all that wind. Every village in the Grampians will have a wee hash farm. When the deep hot redundant mines are turned over to the production of every plant known we'll be onto a winner. The green industries will be getting more and more investment. The small country with a chip on one shoulder and a deep fried mars bar on the other will suddenly find itself at the centre of something useful. Instead of carping on about pollution in our waters we can clean up our rivers and salmon farms. We can get those fisheries protection vessels back out to sea and protection the marine life. Its not about watching Seaspiracy on Netflix, its about making it happen on our doorstep. We cant stop gangsters worldwide, but we can on our doorstep. We can stop the trawlers landing their catch onto a russian super tanker by imposing laws that say that cant leave our waters. If a Scottish ship wants to catch fish in Scottish waters they cant leave. If they want to leave thats fine but dont come back when you want to see a doctor or a dentist. I dont get the idea you'd let your own people be gangsters and tolerate it. If you make drink cheaper in certain ports in Scotland, you might have to increase the bouncer industry, but thats good for job creation too. It would certainly help build some community trust and give all those highland games folk some work when they're not tossing cabers. The more people doing more work, the more income tax they pay. Deadbeat was 10p from issue #4 and we never upped it, we just ran out of cash and time. I think that was when drink had gone from 50p to £1 a pint. I did a diary back then. I'll have a look. I'll probably be a bit of time but surely back for a piece of that DB40 cake.