With Sunday lunch my wife and I enjoy sharing a bottle of cider - something like WESTONS's VINTAGE or ORGANIC.

At around £1.99 from Waitrose this is also a relatively inexpensive drink to have with lunch compared to the average of £5 or £6 for a bottle of wine ( which is also 70ml rather than 40ml or 50ml )

Today our amazing Government have announced they want to charge per UNIT of alcohol rather than any other method.

This will directly KILL THE UK CIDER MAKERS. Our inexpensive drink will go up to nearly £4. Even though we only have one drink every few weeks. It will become a luxury.

The Cider Industry in the UK probably employs over 100,000. Those jobs are now at risk.

Why does our government TAX our own industries more than the EU makers. By all means double the price of a bottle of French wine from £5 to £10 or Continental Lager from £1 to £2. But to hit our own drinks industry is crazy when there is a recession.

I sometimes think BROWN is trying to devastate the economy in the South of England.....his policies never hit the North or Scotland who seem to get all the money and have lost hardly any jobs in the Credit Crunch because 90% of the population up there work in the Public Sector.

This recession seems to be intentional and seems directed against England by our own Government. The stats back that up. This new alcohol idea is another nail in the coffin and will destroy thousands of UK jobs and will do nothing to stop alcohol abuse. Price has nothing to do with binge drinking or addiction - look at drug addicts.