EDINBURGH, Scotland — An Internet campaign to ban Britain’s Treasury chief from the nation’s pubs has struck a chord with the country’s harried drinkers.
This month, Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the exchequer, raised taxes on cars and cigarettes. But it is his new alcohol duties, which raised the price of a pint of beer, that raised Britons’ hackles.
So when a pub landlord in Darling’s hometown of Edinburgh barred the chancellor from his establishment, drinking holes across the country followed suit, posting pictures of the white-haired, bespectacled treasurer above the big red word “barred.”
The government has raised taxes on alcohol by an extra 8 cents for a pint of beer, 26 cents for a bottle of wine and $1.10 for a bottle of spirits such as whiskey. The duties are scheduled to rise by another 2 percent above inflation in each of the next four years.
Bar manager Andrew Little at the Utopia pub, which kicked off the campaign, said the poster was put up “tongue- in-cheek,” but the sentiment snowballed. “It looks like we’ve touched a nerve,” Little said.
Hundreds have joined Internet groups devoted to running Darling out of the country’s pubs. Establishments from the Tap and Spile in the north England town of Lincoln to the Plough Inn in Finstock, near Oxford, said Darling would not be allowed to drink there.
