Is Stella as cheap as Cameron thinks?
The claim
“I think if what you’re trying to do is stop supermarkets from selling 20 tins of Stella for a fiver that’s what we’ve got to go after.”
David Cameron, interview with Manchester Evening News about a ban on cheap alcohol, 11 August 2010
Cathy Newman checks it out
David Cameron told us this week he was a fully paid-up member of the sharp-elbowed middle classes, so it should come as no surprise that he’s got an eye for a good bargain. However FactCheck was surprised that someone of the PM’s social pedigree was quite so familiar with the cost of a few “tins” – as he so colloquially put it. Or was he not quite as lager-literate as he let on? Whether you’re a member of the middle classes or the Bullingdon Club, is there really such a good deal to be had on Stella? FactCheck is on the (beer) case.
Over to the team for the analysis
According to price comparison website mySupermaket, Tesco and Ocado offer the cheapest price right now on 20 cans of Stella. A pack of the 5.2 per cent strength lager would set you back £15 – three times what Cameron suggested.
But what about all those cut-price promotions? We asked the five biggest UK supermarket chains just how cheaply they’ve sold Stella Artois. So far, no one we spoke to could remember flogging cans for 25p each – the bargain Cameron claimed to have spotted.
However, we did unearth a hearty round of expired beer bargains. During the World Cup, for example, shoppers at Tesco could bag 36 cans of Stella for £20 – an equivalent of 56p a can. Asda had 20 cans of the “reassuringly expensive” stuff for £9 – still a cost of 45p each.
But if we open the bar wider than Stella, though, the PM’s pricing sounds less outlandish. A price war in 2007 saw basic own-brand supermarket lager flogged for as little as 22p a can. This would mean 22 cans for just £5 – although the rock-bottom lager was also less than half the strength of Stella Artois. And more recently, Morrisons came under fire from campaigners for a four-day offer of four bottles of Carlsberg for a pound – which could have given a drinker 20 toasts for a fiver.
So although there’s nothing to stop a supermarket from selling Stella for as little as the PM suggested, our pub crawl up and down the aisles hasn’t hit upon such a bargain. We asked Downing Street whether the PM had found a secret Stella store or if he was just speaking metaphorically, but are still awaiting a response.
Cathy Newman’s verdict
Cameron appears to have betrayed his upmarket roots by singling out Stella. There’s a reason why it markets itself as “reassuringly expensive”: while others have dropped their prices, Stella won’t be sold so cheap. So prime minister, if you can find us 20 cans for a fiver, FactCheck will stand you a round.
There are 17 comments on this post
20 tins of Stella for £5….Where the hell is this Supermarket i would like to know!
I think his advisor has the facts wrong,
He probably means 24 Biere Blonde 33cl Bottles for £5 and Supermarkets have been selling that for years anyway,
It tastes like used dishwater (hence the price tag), contains about 3% ABV and the chances of getting drunk on it are non existent!
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To be fair to Cameron, Stella was on sale back in April this year at £1.25 for 4 cans in Manchester. Not quite £5 for 20, but fairly close (£6.25 for 20 cans).
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I remember buying £5 crates of Stella ’4′ last year (20cans) ,from asda. Me and my mate bought 6 each.
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You could have brought Stella for £1.25 for 4 cans (330ml) back in April in Tesco. Admittedly not every store had the offer, but Prestwich, Manchester did, as did Batley. Also if your store had the offer on, you could buy it online at that price.
Still not quite £5 for 20 cans, but the closest offer I have seen in a long while. To put it in context at the time, it was 31p cheaper a can to buy Stella than a can of Pepsi.
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Er. I think he was just exaggerating for effect. I don’t think you’re meant to take it literally.
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Of course it’s a metaphor! What supermarket sells anything in whole £’s. Really Factcheck, a whole article on this. Was it sponsored by aforementioned price comparison website?
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It was silly of him to pick on Stella as it is on offer on rare occasions. usually £15 for 20 bottles but the advert would have to read
GET OFF Yer FACE FoR a Fiver !! £15 for 20 bottles ( 6 odd bottles would be about a Fiver at this rate and would get you off yer face !! )
But only if you are David Cameron !!
However the hard drinkers who cause all the trouble don’t care about Tesco deals because they are “down the clubs” drinking till closing
at 3:00 a.m. at club prices i.e £3.50 or more a bottle .The Police will tell you what happens then !! I don’t see these trouble makers in Tesco scoping out the deals to get them faceless for the best possible price ” I think I should buy that Stella because I can get off my face for a fiver before I go out “( three times !! )
These boozey types don’t think like that !!
They don’t plan ahead . Bottom line :
Cheap drink is not what they are about.
Factcheck are right he needs better researchers.
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@ Alan Moore
He is supposed to be our Prime Minister and i suppose his talk about huge budget cuts to claw back the deficit was just a metaphor too?
*shakes head in dismay*
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Cameron has misspoken again. He gets away with saying anything at all by claiming he misspoke.
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They should target Buckfast Tonic Wine, the asbo’s choice, at 15% it is powerful stuff.
Its simple just raise the duty on booze, serious boozers will then go on a booze cruise. Those with taste buds will not notice the difference.
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Figure of speech, he just speaking generally to amke apoint. What a ridiculous analysis-there is a real problem here with violence, debt, ill-health and you come up with this. After the debacle of the last government and drink, glad to see some early signs of hope with Cameron.
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Cameron was clearly being informal and illustrating a point.
However, there really is a problem. ASDA have special offers selling 15 440ml cans of Strongbow at £5, or 33p a can. The cheapest Coca-cola cans were in a multibuy that worked out at a 330ml can for 32p.
There is a problem with alcohol. The supermarkets have distorted the market – all their own brand stuff is indentically priced. Pubs and local shops can’t compete.
I do care that people aren’t overcharged for luxuries like alcohol. But I care more that the NHS isn’t swamped with unnecessary cases through booze. I especially care that I or any of mine get the XXXX kicked out of us by a group of teenagers on value cider at £1.21 for two litres. This should not be allowed. It needs to be tackled.
Arguing about minutiae like this article plays into multinational corporations’ hands. Nobody could claim that alcohol is not a problem. So can’t somebody go and actually do something positive to tackle it?
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Tackle the bad behaviour not the alcohol pricing. Why should I have to pay more for a beer because others misbehave?
Most alcohol fuel violence is in town centres late at night. If any controls are needed cut back opening hours late at night.
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There has been a problem with alcohol abuse in the UK for well over a 100 odd years and longer, price does not come into it, if the price was to high you make it your self, its been done for hundreds of years. I remember my father saying there was such a thing in the gorbals as stair gas wine, where coal gas was bubbled through a bottle of milk mixed with black boot polish. So there is always a way round things after all it was Thacher that gave a way off-licence and pubs right to sell alcohol to the super markets.
As far as drinking so much till you fall flat on your face, there was a program on one of the channels ether CH4,BBC or ITV that was talking about the rich going on tours across Europe in the 1800 used to drink so much they would fall flat on there face to the embarrassment of there Italian hosts. So nothing has really changed over generation, it’s just the poor people can get drunk on better quality products.
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One thing we noticed in France is that all the wine glasses are so much smaller. Maybe 35mm instead of 65mm. Two folk will share one bottle and only one for dinner and it is certainly OK to cork a bottle to finish the next night. This is way beyond the UK mind set.
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I have noticed in the past on office nights out
that rhe women often had a half bottle of Vodka in their hand bags ” to keep costs down ” -Because of the well overpriced club drinks !!
But they weren’t causing any trouble after hours !!
The cost of booze does not modify the behaviour of violent men it only affects their spending power. Also if the price is fixed higher then illegal cheap booze will see an upsurge or making your own .And you are then back to the bad old days of dodging the “Exise Man” or was it “Run like the devil from ?
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I thought this was a democracy, not Camerons ‘Neverland’.
Government profits from the VAT increase from your food alone comes to profits of 1 billion a week pocket money for David Camerons government.
Add this to spending cuts that will render 4 million unemployed making an unemployment record high, and then consider he is going to force half a million sick people back to work and off of benefits.
He isn’t saying ‘thank’ you to civil servants and he is turning people against each other!.
I don’t think a 10p rise in fuel prices over ‘x y z’ years justifies the way this illegal government and affiliated corporations have bleed every penny from the UK civilization, do you ?
We know we own the competitions fuel pumps now, and further to this BP are the worlds most profitable fortune 500 oil company!.
Camerons government can’t even account for a single penny of the 6.2 billion a year spent on the new British space program, infact they can’t even produce a single employee.
He is like a vampire octopus wrapped around the face of England cutting everything back like a child in a sweet shop apart from the most important thing, his job.
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