Minimum pricing and the reverse Midas touch of 'public health'

More evidence that the Sheffield minimum pricing model was flim flam...

This follows the release of data from the Retail Data Partnership which found the following trend in convenience stores:

Brian Eagle-Brown of The Retail Data Partnership (TRDP) gave an overview of convenience performance in recent months, noting that alcohol sales were up “across the board” since the implementation of MUP.

“What was unexpected is that the result of minimum pricing is not declining, but actually increasing alcohol sales. Gin sales are up 90% year on year,” he said.

And as a fun bonus:

In news that may further disappoint policy makers, sales of full sugar soft drinks also appear to have been largely unaffected by the introduction of the sugar tax.

Brian’s TRDP colleague James Loker said that there “had not been a massive impact” from the sugar tax, and that “essentially sugary drinks are doing as well as they always have, and in some cases actually better.”

TRDP data revealed that the drinks most disadvantaged by the tax were those that opted for a formula change, with Irn-Bru and Ribena suffering a sales downturn.

Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.

I'll just leave this here lest we forget...