Let 'Em Suffer

Tom Harris was banging on about the IPSA again this morning on BBC Radio. Astoundingly, while defending his stance against the man from Del Monte, he had the gall to complain that,

"MPs brought it in but there was no vote"

This, remember, from a member of the government who allowed Gordon Brown to slope off and sign Lisbon behind closed doors despite promising us our say on the matter.

Harris further described the IPSA as "a nightmare", as it's rules were "so spiteful" and "unnecessary".

Again, quite stunning hypocrisy from a member of the administration which passed the spiteful, and unnecessary, nightmare of the Health Act 2006 after reneging on its manifesto commitment for a partial ban.

Meanwhile, I have my anons to thank for finding the type of person such legislation pandered to.

My personal belief is that public health is a field that should work through government intervention for the public interest - for instance, the smoking ban or minimum alcohol pricing.

A bit of a sacrifice for the porky green guy? Well, not really, no.

I usually never drink during the week (last Tuesday being the obvious exception for my birthday...) and I've never smoked or taken any recreational drugs.

So the smoking ban doesn't affect him at all since he doesn't smoke and doesn't use pubs, and the one beer a week he buys is from the supermarket and is already priced in excess of any potential minimum price control.

He's happy to tell others what to do, though. Your choices must be curtailed because Kris knows better. ASH insisted that such people would pack the pubs out post July 2007. Our wise MPs believed them.

Many of these same MPs are now planning how best to impose similarly 'spiteful' and 'unnecessary' regulations on alcohol, while still refusing to free us from the 'nightmare' of a quite appalling legislative over-reaction in July 2007, and also repeatedly ensuring we are allowed 'no vote' on Europe.

Keep sticking it to 'em, IPSA ... they fucking deserve every uncomfortable minute of it.