ONE expects politicians to be dogmatic, but Chancellor Gordon Brown is proving to be a grade one ostrich with his 25p rise in the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes.
By pressing on with further punishment of smokers through extortionate levels of taxation, he is rejecting not only the advice of the government's 'smuggling czar' to reduce the duty levied on tobacco, he is also ignoring the experience of Sweden, where the government cut duty on tobacco to combat smuggling, and of Hong Kong, where a tax freeze was recently introduced.
Mr Brown could destroy the black market overnight if he reduced taxation to European levels.
Instead, the Treasury is losing £2.5 billion a year in unpaid duty and the flood of cheap tobacco means that it is increasingly accessible to both adults and children. Talk about a political own goal!
MARTIN BALL, Campaigns Director, FOREST, Palace Street, London SW1.
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