And They Wonder Why We Hold Them In Contempt?

Well, that settles it. Whoever's running the country, it's certainly not David Cameron.

The Prime Minister has ordered officials to develop a scheme in England to stop the sale of alcohol at below 40p to 50p a unit in shops and supermarkets.

Ministers could copy Scottish proposals, which would ban the sale of alcohol below 45p a unit, or bring in a more sophisticated system of taxes based on the number of alcohol units contained in the drink.

A Whitehall source said: “The Prime Minister has decided that when it comes to alcohol, something pretty radical now has to be done and he is keen on the minimum price. It is complicated how this can be delivered, particularly under European law, but it is clear that the voluntary approach has not worked.”

You'd have to have been living under a rock not to have spotted those two public health lobby sound bites, but I've highlighted them anyway. I'm sure we'll see many more in the new year too if this policy is pursued, Cameron has quite obviously fallen under the spell of the Department of Health pocket watch. Well, it's the only workable explanation for the curious anomaly described by Cranmer.

So a professing Conservative free-marketeer in coalition with a professing Liberal proponent of equality seek to adopt a Socialist mechanism to interfere with market prices which will disproportionately hit the poorest in society.

Indeed.

After months of correctly pointing out that the policy is sinister, illegal, won't do as intended, and just plain daft, now it's miraculously the best thing since air-brushed foreheads.

Here we have yet another example of how the civil service have utterly owned Cameron's government since the 2010 election. Remember this from April last year?

Mike Penning, the shadow health minister, told the National Federation of Retail Newsagents: "I am not a lawyer but I have always been concerned whether the Government's legislation on this is legal. Therefore a challenge by way of a Judicial Review seems a sensible thing to do."

Mr Pelling said the Conservatives, if elected, would bring the matter back before Parliament.

Their coalition partners were of the same opinion.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary Norman Lamb said it was "the nanny state going too far."

Then note the volte face once they were in office.

Ministers were accused of betraying British shopkeepers today by pressing ahead with a ban on tobacco displays.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley announced that laws brought in by Labour, forcing cigarettes and other products under the counter, would be delayed but not scrapped.

Sir Humphrey et al have done a right old number on spineless Dave and the equally lily-livered sock puppets he governs with, haven't they?

No point in going through all that election palaver anymore - if you crave power, simply get a job in Whitehall and have your own pet politician dance around on the end of a broom handle, it would seem.

Our esteemed mascot is, as always, on the button with his summation of Cameron's latest vacant-headed toss.

Philip Davies, another Conservative backbencher, said the proposal was "the most ludicrous thing the Government has ever suggested".

"I believe in the free market and I don't believe in the nanny state," he said. "If anybody thinks this is going to stop binge drinking they need their head examined".

However, as these hideous arseholes continue "to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties and roll back state intrusion" by also pushing ahead with their laughable plain packaging nonsense in 2012, via Frank Davis, I think quote of the festive period must surely go to Phil Williams in this vid.

New Year's Eve is particularly miserable because it's when we celebrate the end of one miserable year and the beginning of another one. Don't be fooled. Next year is going to be just as shitty as this one, if not shittier.

Yep. That just about sums it up.