One quirk of Budget Day is that the chancellor is allowed to have a Budget tipple while delivering his speech. The last chancellor to do so was Ken Clarke, who opted for whisky. Recent chancellors have preferred water, which may seem cruelly appropriate, in light of the successive blows they have dealt to the drinks industry - specifically by imposing a duty escalator that raised tax by 2% above inflation every year.

Well, yesterday George Osborne ended some of the disappointment. He didn’t actually resort to having a tumbler of Scotch at the despatch box, sticking instead to a glass of water (and he needed it, at times, with his voice occasionally going hoarse from rising above the mooing of the backbenches). But he did prove himself a friend of the drinks industry, by announcing the abolition of the hated duty escalator, freezing duty on spirits and cider, and repeating last year’s surprise 1p cut on beer.

The drinks lobby has been quick to cheer, with each group falling over itself to say it would be toasting the chancellor’s good health. Spare a thought for the wine sector, though: duty on wine will still go up by inflation, according to RPI – putting 6p on a bottle. (It seems that the Treasury has concluded, finally, that a disparity in tax on wine and beer is not against EU law, despite some suggestion last year that it be.)

All in all, however, it has been a thumping success for the Call Time on Duty campaign and the WSTA, as well as the various beer lobby groups, led by the MP for Burton on Trent, Andrew Griffiths, who was given a hat-tip in Osborne’s speech. Critics can scoff that a penny off the pint will do little for the average drinker, but the point is that a policy that was highly detrimental to the industry has been binned.

Intriguingly, Osborne suggested he was able to ditch the hated escalator because the government had now implemented more “targeted” policies on booze, such as the recent ban on “below cost” selling. “This helps prevent supermarkets undercutting pubs, and helps stop problem drinking,” he said. However, the below-cost booze ban is a long way short of minimum unit pricing, which was being seriously mulled until the middle of last year. The abandonment of that policy, and now the duty escalator, suggests the government’s stance on booze has softened considerably in the last year - and will add fuel to the fire of health campaigners who have, in the past, accused it of being far too cosy with the drinks lobby.

Alcohol aside, the Budget was a mixed bag, with general approval of the doubling of the Annual Investment Allowance until 2015, but disappointment that there was no movement on the issue of business rates.

And then there was the announcement of a new, 12-sided £1 coin, based on the old threepenny bit. You could almost hear the stampede to Google from those of us too young to remember the original coin (it was discontinued in 1971). While the history of UK coins suddenly piqued the national interest (or mine, at least), the Federation of Small Businesses warned companies would have to foot the bill for changing machinery to accommodate the new pound. And there’s another dilemma: can we still talk about “round pound pricing”? Or is it 12-sided pricing from now on?

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