Boozers bashed again

According to The Telegraph, the Treasury is considering repeating the five per cent increase in alcohol duty imposed in March, and increasing VAT in a bid to reduce Britain's £156 billion budget deficit. This will mean yet another hike in booze prices.
Yet according to HM Revenue and Customs, the tax garnered from alcohol has fallen by £730 million since 2008. In other words, the point of diminishing returns has been reached - and passed. So the price rises will simply force more pubs into closure, creating unemployment, increasing benefit payments, and reducing tax yields. It will increase the number of people taking cheaper, more readily available illegal drugs.
Meanwhile, spending will continue on futile military adventures, bird-shredding windmills and a thousand other idiocies.
What a government.