It's All So Predictable

Sigh.

Five out of six brewers has failed to comply with a voluntary code to carry warnings of the dangers of alcohol on drinks bottles, a Government report will say.

It really matters not how many, or how few, brewers decided to follow the code. As we have seen many times before, government guidelines will always resort to compulsory in the end.

Health ministers are now considering making the scheme compulsory.

That will be one more slice, then it's a case of consigning it to history and opening up a new front. The motivation will probably be that the mandatory labels aren't working, so there should be a more 'robust' approach.

For robust, read dictatorial.

Of course, as it's very tiring to keep pointing out, the methods used since 2002 or thereabouts - that is, gentle persuasion as opposed to irrational hyperbole - have been working perfectly well for reducing consumption in both males and females.


And as recently confirmed by Gillian Merron, the relaxed approach has also done wonders for the drive to restrict youth drinking.



So why the hysterical urgency from proper cunt Ian Gilmore?

The Royal College of Physicians said the failure by brewers to adopt the health labels was “scandalous.”

The president of the college, Professor Ian Gilmore, said: “If the Government is going to name and shame companies, it's high time they did.

“The code should be mandatory. If the industry is dragging its heels, we cannot wait another three years for them to comply.”

Who is the 'we' you refer to, Ian?

I see no mass public rising in favour of alcohol labelling. No placard wavers marching on Parliament Square. In fact, not even the odd grumble.

So, in fact, 'we' can wait as long as we damn well like. It's just the rancid, anti-social, self-righteous 'you' and your equally hideous temperance society pals who feel a burning desire to pass laws on the drinks industry.

And as 'you' shout the loudest, funded by our taxes natch, it is 'you' who the majority of the 646 retards (and I don't use that word lightly) in Westminster will listen to.

CAMRA would have ventured an opinion in defence of brewers but they were in the pub, with their equally self-interested pals, boring the living shit out of anyone in earshot.