BREWERS want the duty on beer cut by 26p a pint - as the UK drinks trade is floored by more than a million pints of cheap bootleg booze flooding in from France.

They are right. In barrier-free European market, Britain's beer just cannot compete when the government adds almost eight times more duty to the UK price of beer than is charged across the Channel.

Pubs, off-licences and jobs are going to the wall under the tide of shady imports. And that's crazy.

But, as Mr Major squeezes public spending in the search for tax cuts, this is one call he will find hard to heed.

The loss of revenue from duty is already so high because of so much smuggling that to cut further by axing duty by as much as 26p would inevitably mean tax being increased on something else.

That's too steep a political cost just now.

But this madness on booze cannot go on untouched for ever.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.