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To the disappointment of alcohol harm experts Kenya’s government is poised to slash tax on spirits by 84%, cutting it from 500 shillings ($3.9) per litre to 80 shillings.

“The adoption of the low rate is…a big blow to efforts in addressing alcohol use and harms in the country,” Celine Awuor of the International Institute for Legislative Affairs, a Kenyan NGO, told Alcohol Review.

“Our proposal to parliament on this was not to reduce the rate, but instead increase it to 900 shillings per litre, or retain the 500 shillings per litre at worst.” The only positive adjustment in the bill was the removal of a tax concession given to local small brewers, according to Awuor.

The cut to spirits tax was done to “support manufacturers” said Treasury secretary John Mbadi. It came after alcohol industry lobbying to reduce alcohol taxes across alcohol categories, often on the premise that it would reduce the problem of illicit alcohol products.

The bill passed parliament on Thursday despite strong opposition. President William Ruto is expected to give his assent in the next few days. ■

UPDATED: Decisive steps to tackle alcohol harm may seem unlikely under pint-quaffing prime ministerial heir-apparent Andy Burnham, but the policy blueprint set by Greater Manchester’s WHO-guided alcohol harm strategy also offers some hope.

Burnham, whose carefully curated brand is that of a blokish northern everyman, portrayed himself as sympathetic to alcohol throughout his campaign for the Makerfield constituency, which looks set to propel him into Number 10.

“I’m going to go and have a pint,” he told reporters after his decisive victory was announced in the early hours of Friday morning. And during the campaign he was pictured talking over pints of Guinness, logos dutifully turned to face the camera, with “Vote Andy” written in the foam.

Burnham raised this pint to the Telegraph’s “Save our pubs” campaign and pledged to cut local business taxes for pubs, clubs and music venues by 20%. He also said he would raise the threshold at which these local taxes are paid.

Tax expert Dan Neidle said such cuts to local business taxes would amount to a tax handout to business property owners rather than to the hospitality businesses that rent from them.

But what happens on the campaign trail may also stay on the campaign trail. If so, Manchester’s approach to alcohol may be a stronger indicator, with nationwide “Manchesterism” said to underpin Burham’s plan.

Greater Manchester’s drug and alcohol strategy for 2025-2030 recognises that alcohol directly causes 1,500 alcohol deaths and over 12,000 hospital admissions a year and costs the region £1.7bn ($2.3bn) a year from crime, health, worklessness and social care.

To tackle the problem region’s alcohol harm strategy draws on the WHO’s SAFER framework. “We are dedicated to taking high-impact actions to address the commercial determinants of health,” it says, which might mean banning alcohol ads on council property.

The strategy also commits Greater Manchester to advocating for “national licensing reform, with a review of the Licensing Act 2003 to prioritise public health, including making health a core fifth objective.” It also says it will push for a 65p minimum unit price.

This is a shift. As culture secretary under Gordon Brown in the late noughties Burnham championed the 2003 Labour licensing changes which allowed for 24-hour drinking. At the time he said a proposed 9pm advertising watershed in Scotland was “a bit silly”. 

As health secretary in the last year of Brown’s tenure he also lent his voice to an alcohol industry responsible-drinking campaign. And he was outed as having been an enthusiastic drinker as a member of the exclusive all-male Mornie Onion Society at Cambridge university.

Alongside other Labour top brass Burnham admitted in 2015 that allowing 24-hour drinking was a mistake, adding another layer to Burnham’s self-contradictory picture around alcohol and alcohol harm policy.

Burnham’s policy programme is still far from clear at this stage. But he may make some progress if he chooses Manchester’s policy ideas over embodying a working-class northern stereotype. ■

There is a “substantial amount of risk” for people drinking lower levels of alcohol, according to a new report from Ireland’s Health Information and Quality Authority, with “minimal” difference in risk between sexes.

“For premature mortality, the estimated lifetime risk is approximately 1 in 1,000 at around 5g/day [6.25ml/day] and 1 in 100 at around 18g/day [22.5ml/day] for men, and approximately 1 in 1,000 at around 4g/day [5ml/day] and 1 in 100 at around 16g/day [20ml/day] for women,” the report says.

The report is intended to inform an update to Ireland’s current low-risk alcohol guidelines of 137.5ml of alcohol a week for women and 212.5ml for men. These are typically expressed in Irish “standard drinks”, which are 12.5ml each.

The UK’s low-risk guidelines were set at 140ml a week for both men and women ten years ago. ■ 

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Social media, vapes, gambling, dating sites and porn all now add to the mix of products which can undermine young people’s lives. And alcohol is still there too. Regulation and opportunities to make real friends are the way to put it right, explains Joe Woof, co-lead of the Addiction Economy project at NGO SocietyInside. ■

0:00 Intro

3:09 Session 1: AI ad monitoring

Learn how AI is being used to monitor alcohol ads from Professor Kathryn Backholer of Deakin University, offering the potential for far better monitoring and enforcement.

15:00 Session 2: AI information delivery

Explore the potential for general AI and bots to deliver alcohol information and from Nataly Bovopoulos of Australia’s Alcohol and Drug Foundation.

47:13 Q&A: Join the participant Q&A session

You can also now watch AR2026 Extra sessions on alcohol violence and alcohol’s impact on heart health. ■

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Simon Bratt, a senior lecturer at Liverpool Hope University and author of the Layered Care substack, explains why mental health and alcohol services need to be integrated to be effective in tackling problematic drinking. ■