With over half the community on long-term sickness benefits, regulars of Wetherspoon’s Picture House pub in Ebbw Vale normally have to limit themselves to only six or seven pints during the early morning breakfast session.
It was a different story yesterday morning though as news of the chancellor’s beer bonanza eventually trickled down to the sleepy ex-mining and steel town. “People just seemed to go wild” said manager Daffyd Jones. Many of the old-timers worked down the mines or in the iron and steel works and grew up thirsty, but Jones has other theories for the morning’s surge of extra-heavy boozing. “There is a generation” he explained, “who have never actually worked but carry a sort of genetic thirst. There are also a significant number who haven’t really sobered up since the rugby. When the news of a 1p reduction in beer tax started to spread they just couldn’t believe it and started sort of stockpiling beer in case he changed his mind.” As word spread to the local benefit office and the town’s half a dozen bookies a binge drinking frenzy erupted. “I know we should stop serving them when they’re pissed” says Jones, “but the accent is so heavy here in the valleys it’s really difficult to tell” He went on, “It’s not like they haven’t got brains though; They’ve got f**ing gallons of it!”
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Beer duty reduction blamed for binge drinking outbreak
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