I gather this is due to virtually stop for the "normal" man because the fags allowance has risen from 800 to 3200 per trip.
So what is the price comparison between the cost of a packet of 20 tax free in France and over the counter here?
MM
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You pay approximatly £45 for a carton of 200 and in france (last time I went) it was £20
thinking about going over again soon, £320 for 160 packs, save about £500 quid
Somebody told me belgium was even cheaper, not sure though
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Yes, Belgium is about £19 a carton. On the ferry, a carton of 800 costs £83.50.
Filthy habit - glad I gave it up when they were £1.30 a pack in this country!
Terry
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I bought fags in France recently for about the same price as Belgium. But hand rolling baccy is apparently much cheaper in Belgium.
Best deal to date was £13 with P&O, you drive onto the ferry at Dover, get into the duty free shop before it opens, they box up your purchases and hang onto them, then while docked in Calais they load them into your car, you turn the car around and are 1st off at Dover.
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Nice to see the presumption of innocence making a comeback, or am I being unduly optimistic?
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Yes and yes
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I decided to quit when Harold Wilson's Gov't shoved the price of 20 Embassy up to 4/11d......
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When I started smoking (early '70s) they were 35p a pack (about the same as a paperback book was).
I always said I would give-up when they reached £1.00 a pack, but is was not until the 5th Jan 2002 that I stopped smoking.
Cost now of a 20 pack = £4.35...
Cost now of a paperback £5.99...
I will get no 'benefit'(?) of this so called "increase in allowance" DOH! Except for the clean ashtray in the car (motoring link).
PS.
I stopped reading books years ago.
John R
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"Nice to see the presumption of innocence making a comeback, or am I being unduly optimistic?"
If you are talking about UK politicians , most are guilty as charged: lying, theft, evasiveness, extravagant and unkeepable promises.
If you are talking about UK consumers: well it's just a (hopefully vain) attempt by HMG to avoid getting a black mark from the EU on preventing fair trade and no boundaries. Never mind we have the UK Declaration of Human Rights in our legal system.. ooops that does NOT apply to Customs and Excise!
QED: UK politicians ARE guilty !
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From my smoking days in the 70's I seem to remember that cigarette papers are very expensive on the continent. This is supported by a news report a couple of years ago which interviewed a newsagent in (I think) Harwich. "I sell enough cigarette papers to roll 50000 fags a week but only enough tobacco for 200" said the puzzled man.
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IMHO the practice of impounding, auctioning off or crushing vehicles should never have been allowed in the first place.
Only a tiny, tiny minority of the so-called "smugglers" had actually broken the law, only a non-legally binding and arbitary "allowance", and an even tinier minority had been convicted in court, which is the only body in the UK permitted to pass sentence.
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I have the feeling that when the class action goes to court it is going to cost the taxpayers millions of pounds in compo for all the illegally impounded cars and goods, probably negating the "loss of revenue" that this grasping government would have us believe to be the case.
Why should we be surprised at what the various arms of the government do - after all they are no strangers to breaking International Laws and EU regulations - usually against the people of the UK.
Conclusion - the government are the enemy of the people.
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The 'government' are not anybodies enemy! Unfortunately being politicians they tend to opt for the status quo and a quiet life. Therefore they do what the civil service, who are permanently in power, tell them.
This customs fiasco just shows how slow the thought processes of our real masters are. When a ferry firm takes C&E to the high court it really shows that real democracy depends on financial interests not votes.
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The UK is currently half-in and half-out of the EU. We either need to drop the barriers to free trade between the UK and Europe or we should break away from the EU completely.
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Just to add my forur penn'oth
Most people are not "smugglers" they are doing what they are entitled to do -
Perhaps on this forum we should stop worrying about the price of fags over there and question why virtually everything else is so much cheaper - not just washing powder, most food stuffs etc but (motoring link) main dealer labour charges (Citroen £39 per hour as I mentioned in a recent post), engine oil (Elf Turbo D semi synth £9 per 5 litres with free extra litre, Mobil 1 £16 for 5 litres in supermarkets), top quality wiper blades £3 each, Purflux oil filters less than a fiver, etc etc. At last our car prices seem to be coming down to meet continental prices (?) but why are some still so much cheaper to import. And while on the subject, last week in France between Calais and Brittany I drove on 2 brand new stretches of motorway opened since the summer and a couple of new town by-passes. I also managed 200 miles from Normandy to Calais in 3 hours (no rush)yet 200 from Dover to Midlands took 6 hours of continuos traffic jams.
PhilW
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Micky,
The UK is currently completely in the EU.
It is our own Government which is maintaining the barriers to free trade by persisting in tax policies at complete variance with the other members.
We waste billions on the cost of enforcing our own restrictive practices at our borders: all totally non-productive.
My own opinion, based on purely financial grounds, is that we should quit the EU, they need us more than we need them.
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