Mark Daniels: Thanks for nothing, Mr Darling

It's not a very funny joke, but then neither is the Chancellor's decision to once again hike up the tax on alcohol, with a further 2% added to the 8% increase on beer introduced on December 1st '08.

I could try and temper these rises by mentioning that we still actually don't pay as much for a pint in a pub as you might expect to pay in some other countries. In Dubai, the equivalent of a pint will set you back around eight quid, while closer to home a pint in Zurich will be around a fiver, and you'd expect to pay a similar price for a beer in a bar in France.

But such an attempt to temper the fact that our alcohol is going up again will fall flat on the ears of many, as indeed it does with me. With a borrowing figure as frighteningly high as ours, worrying about what other countries pay for their beer is somewhat irrelevant.

The Chancellor's budget, a waffling diatribe of me, me, me in an attempt to ensure that, despite whoever's in charge in 2015, he'll be able to say that he forecast borrowing would come down in the future, has apparently been aimed at helping small businesses and penalising the higher earners.

The ability to claim back taxes paid on profits in previous years for businesses now enduring losses, an attempt to help them stabilise their cash flow, is indeed generous, but sadly won't help the many small businesses in the beleaguered pub industry. Anything we might be able to attempt to claw back will simply be lost, again, in the further rises on alcohol duty.

Despite parliamentary motions, despite the backing of MPs, despite the attempts of The Publican or the activities of the Axe the Tax campaign or Mr Pinty and his friends to lobby the Chancellor in to at least freezing alcohol duty this year to help the pub trade, the rise came anyway. And with immediate effect.

It shouldn't really have come as a surprise to any of us, yet it was disappointing to hear nonetheless. And will just mean that, regardless of Mr Darling's promises that he's helping small businesses, thousands in the pub trade will find themselves in an even more precarious position.

So what does this rise mean for beer prices? Essentially, it's going to mean around an extra 2p on a pint - which doesn't sound like much. What it does mean, however, is that many customers will expect (and many publicans will try to achieve) the increase to be swallowed by the pubs, but as many of us have been doing this with the rises over the past year or so, it will simply mean that the bottom lines of many pub businesses will shrink further. The only businesses truly capable of swallowing this rise are the supermarkets.

With the Chancellor's budget focusing on reducing carbon output, there's a certain irony that it falls on World Earth Day. At least the sun is shining - thank God for global warming! What the pubs need now is a bloody good summer to help bring people out.