With the amount of positive coverage the BBC has given to the wonderful panacea that is the idea of setting a minimum price for a unit of alcohol (Raising the minimum price of alcohol 'benefits all', Ministers propose Scottish minimum drink price of 45p, Plans for minimum alcohol price, Alcohol Concern calls for end of 'pocket money' alcohol, Call for all-party meeting on minimum pricing, Alcohol in Jersey is 'too cheap and too easy to find', Alcohol abuse 'created by price', Is alcohol too cheap?, Northern Ireland psychiatrists in drink price call,'I drank 15 cans a day', Apology over drink price claims, Minimum alcohol price 'would give retailers a windfall', Health Minister considering minimum price for alcohol, Watchdog backs a minimum price for alcohol) it's hardly surprising that they've not dedicated much time to the news that the plans were rejected by MSPs by a margin of 76-49 votes.
The Alcohol Bill was passed by MSPs including provisions to ban "irresponsible" drinks promotions, tougher proof of age requirements and a Social Responsibility fee for alcohol retailers. Quite how something is legally determined as irresponsible evades me, the social responsibility charge is just another way of gathering tax revenue, and how old someone looks is entirely random and subjective. All these measures are yet more small steps towards a total state control of our lives.
The measures that didn't get through this time, minimum pricing and a raise in the legal age for purchasing alcohol, will no doubt be brought forward again on a national scale once the current measures seem normal. In fact after I'd begun writing this post I came across a link on Twitter [NSFW] to a news article that suggests that the SNP, or politicians in general, are not going to give up on the idea of minimum alcohol pricing.
Why can't these interfering spunkmonkeys leave us alone?
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
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7 comments:
Minimum pricing stalled for the moment. I wonder if last years online fight against Alcohol Concern(Scotland) (in which bloggers managed to spike their poll about minimum pricing so that it had 94% the 'wrong' answer) took the wind out of some supporters sails?
As for toughening up age related bars to bars, as Tim Martin wrote in Wetherspoons in-house magazine earlier this year, he and every journalist, lawyer and policeman that he knows began discreetly drinking in pubs in his mid-teens (as did I) under the watchfull eye of the publican and regulars who knew perfectly well who was underage and therefore needed no other excuse to eject him/them/me in the event of misbehaviour.
Thus we started our drinking careers in a controlled environment; all the rigid ban has achieved is to force teenagers to drink 'round their mates houses or underneath the archways.
The biggest problem is the alcohol trade is so disparate, we'll never get a firm point of view across. It's ridiculous - Pete Brown, who at the end of the day is an author and journalist who likes pubs (as in he's not directly involved in the trade except as commentator) has done a ton of work proving using the government's own figures that alcohol isn't the demon the D***y M**l portrays it as.
All we need to do as a trade is present this factual evidence to MPs with one voice - the voice of the on trade. Sadly it'll never happen whilst a loud minority claim the most important thing affecting the trade is a legally binding contract they freely signed...
[/rant]
Like Donald Pleasance's voice over - "I'll be BACK - BACKBACKBACK,,,"
Poor Nicola must be crying in her organic, fair-trade orange juice...
Completely bloody stupid idea in the first place. How apart maximum ale pricing at £2.50 a pint?
@banned - I too began my education for drinking sensibly at the back of beer gardens as a young teenager then moved on to the advanced 'indoor drinking' stage as I neared my 18th birthday. I agree with you completely that the old system of 'fear of being thrown out by the landlord' was a brilliant deterrent to antisocial behaviour.
Dear Mr Widdicombe
"tougher proof of age requirements" is probably code for revisiting ID cards (although it is the linked government and corporate databases which are the problem and they are still in place).
It comes down to 'too much time, too little to do'. These people are employed at the public teat. The Gaussian distribution curve applies – a few government employees are actually useful, the vast majority get paid to have a social life with pension rights, and a few people are dedicated to inflicting damage on society because they can. With time on their hands and a budget robbed from the taxpayer they can afford to indulge all manner of compulsive-obsessive activities. They can spend a working lifetime chasing one obsession after another whilst being paid higher than average salaries by the people whom they are abusing, then retire on a gold plated pension.
There is only one way to end this: stop paying taxes.
DP
Dear Mr Widdicombe
"Why can't these interfering spunkmonkeys leave us alone?"
Too much time, too little to do.
Simples.
DP
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