Sunak heckled by angry publican

Rishi Sunak has been heckled during a visit to the Great British Beer Festival in central London.

As the PM pulled a pint to promote his changes to alcohol tax, publican Rudi Keyser shouted: “Prime minister, oh the irony that you’re raising alcohol duty on the day that you’re pulling a pint.”

Mr Keyser later told the BBC: “I wasn’t expecting to see the prime minister but when I saw him he really riled me up.”

Earlier, Mr Sunak defended the new system as “inherently more sensible”.

Speaking to reporters he said he was “radically simplifying” the system to ensure that the less alcohol in a drink, the lower the tax imposed.

Under the changes, duty will rise overall, particularly on wine and spirits, but fall on lower-alcohol drinks and most sparkling wine.

Taxes on draught pints will not change, an additional measure that will reduce it to a lower rate than the tax on supermarket beer.

Mr Sunak said his changes would be beneficial to “thousands of businesses across the country”.

However, during a tour of the Great British Beer Festival, Mr Keyser – a brewer turned publican – expressed his anger at the changes.

After heckling the prime minister, he told the Press Association that the “draught relief” was “smoke and mirrors” adding: “It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. So across the board, it’s all going up.

“I can tell you from my side now in the trade, the consumer is going to see an increase and he has the audacity to come and pull a pint for PR.”

The prime minister received another, less-hostile, heckle when a member of the crowd shouted out: “Prime minister, it’s not Coca-Cola.”

Mr Sunak, who is teetotal, has previously expressed a passion for the fizzy drink.

The British Beer and Pub Association welcomed some of Mr Sunak’s changes saying it would help “incentivise the production of lower strength products”.

However, it expressed concern that the 10.1% duty increase would have a “huge impact” and urged the government to guarantee there would be no further rises.

The Scotch Whisky Association described the rise as “a hammer blow for distillers and consumers”.