Monday 5 October 2009

Alcohol Denormalisation Update


Let's talk again about that 'denormalisation' thing.

That the marginalisation of UK citizens, based purely on whether they smoked or not, was an unspoken policy of Labour prior to their 2005 general election manifesto must be difficult to deny now.

That they lied in said manifesto (repeatedly and in so many areas) is dramatically evident.

Parties lie, they always have done. OK, not as egregiously as this particular collection of incompetent bastards, but it kinda comes with the territory of being ruled by self-serving career fuckwits. MPs with an axe to grind who are fed up with merely flicking rubber bands at each other, spending all day on Twitter, or using our money to dine at Mezzo's, will inevitably turn to their own prejudices if they aren't allowed, by law, to pursue others.

It's the 'denormalisation' thing that is so hard to stomach from a party who profess a need for society to be bettered by a lessening of friction based on fairly irrelevant criteria.

Discrimination by way of race, gender, sexuality, age and disability has now quite rightly been outlawed. As such, the human condition requires five new categories of perceived lesser beings to ostracise.

Smokers are already installed at number one, and Labour - the party of equality - have set in motion, thanks to their fake charity chums and Department of Health truth-benders, a system of green lights to bring other perceived wrongdoers into the denormalisation process.

What is staggering is the swift nature of it all. One minute you're a constructive member of society who just happens to enjoy tobacco, next you're a pariah. A stain on society and someone who should not be allowed to be touch children.

Likewise is the startling advancement of denormalisation towards number 2 on the list - people who enjoy alcohol.

Consider, for example, this story of life in a northern town (eh-oooh-ma-ma-ma).

Parents in Barnsley have been criticised by police for drinking alcohol when dropping off and collecting their children from school.

Complaints have been made about drinking in the street around Doncaster Road primary school in the town.

Councillors and police are to meet to discuss banning drinking alcohol in the streets around the school.

If the ban is implemented police will have the power to confiscate alcohol and drinkers could face a £500 fine.

Det Insp Mark Spooner, of Barnsley's Central Safer Neighbourhood Team, said they had been getting reports of drinking in the streets around the school and also of parents drinking whilst waiting to pick up their children.

He said: "In my view that's clearly not acceptable. It's not acceptable in a modern society and we will put a stop to it."

Ambush Predator covers this well, but it still begs the question "Which law is being contravened here?".

The answer, of course, is that there isn't one. Hence the requirement for a new one to be created.

Not because there is any law-breaking going on, but for the simple fact that people are exercising their right to drink a legal substance where the righteous don't think it is appropriate.

This is why it is deemed 'unacceptable'. Coca-Cola is acceptable, but not anything which consists of a single figure percentage of alcohol. There is no talk of flatulent drunkards turning up at the school gates, merely those whose refreshment choice isn't of the approved kind.

So how does one sell such a daft policy? Why, with a frantic search for a victim, of course.

Officers surveyed 230 residents in the area and 200 of them said the streets were being blighted by problems with drinkers.

And how many of these transgressors were parents dropping their kids at school, one wonders? I guess at nil.

Other issues included under-age drinking, people urinating in streets and alleyways, late-night noise, damage to vehicles and property and litter.

None of which would seem to have any relevance to the story being discussed.

There is a pointed reference to people drinking at 8:30am, which would appear a bit chavvy admittedly, but seeing as the article mentions that the area in question is one of 'deprivation', it might be fair to say that there could be at least one or more parents who are night workers, doing those vital jobs which the righteous no doubt believe are performed by mysterious elves, for whom 8:30am is the end of a fucking long arduous shift. A beer before going for a long sleep, after dropping off the kid you rarely see, would put an entirely different slant on the matter, would it not?

So, still no law broken; still no hint of armageddon by someone quaffing a Carlsberg; still no realistic victim; still nothing, in fact, but a second front of denormalisation.

Best try to pin it all on the sellers of the alcohol then. There is a victim to be emphasised there if you're devious and determined enough.

ORDINARY consumers are subsidising binge drinkers because supermarkets increase the cost of everyday items to make up for discount alcohol sales, a leading doctor has said.

Liver specialist Dr Chris Record said a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol should be introduced, a move he claimed could lead to a reduction in the cost of a weekly shop.

There it is! The dirty drinkers are costing us all money. It's passive alcohol buying.

Bingo!

Burn them. Damn them all to hell.

So, with number 2 nicely installed on the denormalisation hall of fame, it's next stop number 3. Those disgusting, anti-social lardies.

Don't Labour make you so very proud to be living in such a tolerant, bully and prejudice-free country?




19 comments:

Laurence said...

"ORDINARY consumers are subsidising binge drinkers because supermarkets increase the cost of everyday items to make up for discount alcohol sales, a leading doctor has said."

We need to delegate this important retail analysis work to foreign locums and allow our own doctors to concentrate on looking after their patients.

Unknown said...

What always amazed me about Labour’s manifesto pledge in 2005 is that nobody in the media so much as asked why they reneged on their pledge not to bring in a blanket ban, but prior to the election had only considered a partial ban. If soiling their nappies in this way had been about tax reductions, we would have never heard the end of it.

It appears that demoralization of the ‘wrong social behaviour’ was already underway and had been for sometime, something like three decades of gentle propaganda seepage has done its job nicely. Almost a throw-back to the Temperance movement, and finally prohibition…but of course we know what happened to that.

Nevertheless, look how hard the antis are pushing for outside areas (particularly where children are playing) to be smoke free, even though it’s perfectly legal to smoke in these areas and without harm to anyone. However since the prohibitionists’ are on a roll, then why not throw a blanket over alcohol and obesity as well, after all where will the challenge against this come from?

I had to smile when watching the Politics Show on BBC1, where the hunting fraternity are putting their case for a repeal of the hunting ban…ably supported I’m sure by David Cameron.


Smokers I’m afraid are too disparate a group to have any cohesive impact on politicians.

Frank Davis said...

Great essay! Spot on!

AntiCitizenOne said...

When the state gives you a "nudge" it's best to give them a bloody nose.

It won't change with bluLabour either.

This countries ruling classes are going to have to be left looking like a bad boxer.

JuliaM said...

"Don't Labour make you so very proud to be living in such a tolerant, bully and prejudice-free country?"

And their leadership seems to be responsible for encouraging that attitude to spread to supermarket staff too...

Another effect on 'normalisation'?

Angry Exile said...

So now we know the identity of the five replacement groups: smokers, drinkers, fatties, cheese eaters and people who take milk and sugar and need something with which to stir their tea. If only they were the only five.

WV: 'inell'. Impossible not to mentally add the word 'fuck' to the front.

Anonymous said...

you write "Discrimination by way of race, gender, sexuality, age and disability has now quite rightly been outlawed."

That is a very Righteous use of the word 'rightly'. It is because this kind of infringement of a person's right to employ, or serve as a customer, who the hell they please that the 'denormalising' bastards can get away with so much on top of that list you gave.

Freedom means freedom to discriminate, otherwise it isn't freedom.

AntiCitizenOne said...

I'd also add that Discrimination by way of race, gender, sexuality, age and disability has now NOT been outlawed.

You are just forced to discriminate against certain groups this is called "affirmative-action".

Anonymous said...

I'd like to point that I don't think

"Discrimination by way of race,
gender, sexuality, age and disability" should have been outlawed.

1) The market and morality is quite enough.

2) The intervention doesn't really work, much like any other prohibition. It just raises costs.

3) It has unexpected consequences (such as lower economic growth)

4) It debases other laws such as the constraint on theft - which have a sounder moral base

5) It diverts resource into policing upstanding moral behaviour rather that detecing and punishing thefts and asaults.

I find your casual use the the word "rightly" in this context a measure of how far out society has slipped.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Fair dos, it was badly worded.

Not the 'rightly' bit, though. That any section of society should be discriminated against, purely for a minor part of their being, is wrong.

You're correct that outlawed was the wrong word to use in accompaniment, though. Discouraged, yes. Outlawed, no.

As the rest of the above was getting at, it is quite right to discourage hatred towards an entire minority for the simple reason that no two humans are identical, so shouldn't be judged on something as trivial as race, gender, etc. Nor should smokers, drinkers, or the obese.

It was a sentence designed to illustrate the juxtaposition of Labour's 'diversity' obsession on the one hand, while showing up the deep division they have engendered with their healthist initiatives, on the other.

But I think you knew that, really. ;-)

Anonymous said...

We all know it's blatantly dishonest, misguided to the point of perversion, plain wrong on multiple levels yet our back channel to remonstrate with these demented baboons is blocked by their seeming stranglehold on an idle, disconnected, delinquent and morally bankrupt political class and their supporting goons in the mainstream media.

The parvenu princelings in councils, quangos and 'gubmint appointed by NooLiebor are happy for the chaos perpetrated by this poisonous crusade of the righteous to keep the general population's minds off matters like "where's the money gone?"

But really - what to do ? - that's the Elephant in the room question...... Mr buttered new potato and his Eton crew won't change it - it's set to get a whole lot worse.garitys

Anonymous said...

Could it be?:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptists_and_bootleggers

I note that in Norway the gubmint sells /all/ booze over I think 3.5%

timbone said...

"ORDINARY consumers are subsidising binge drinkers because supermarkets increase the cost of everyday items to make up for discount alcohol sales, a leading doctor has said."

Another piece of disinformation. Cheap booze in Supermarkets is a loss item to draw customers in who may well buy something else as a result - good business - and the loss is often passed on to the booze manufacturers not food items. AHA but the statement comes from 'a leading doctor'. O well, that is different then, doctors know EVERYTHING. Hang on, who is this 'leading doctor', have they by any chance ever been known as A.N.Other or Anon?

Mark Wadsworth said...

ALCOHOL CONTROL OFFICERS!

That's what we need!

They already have 'Tobacco Control Officers' in Northern Ireland, who go round handing out fines to people smoking in their own cars, I shit ye not.

WV: pased. Impossible not to mentally turn that into "pissed".

Junican said...

"Liver specialist, Dr Chris Record.." Where on earth has he appeared from?

A new evangelist for the new religion of HEALTHISM, I fear.

Anonymous said...

As an aside, did you know that in India, Cola is used as a cheap and effective pesticide?

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

neil craig said...

Liver specialist perhaps but doesn't know anything about economics. Supermarkets do not subsidise any of their customers. TYhey make a profit, at least a marginal profit, on all of them. If they didn't make their margin on beer then the cost of running the place would be spread among all the other items. It is possible they are taking a slightly smaller margin on beer because the number of sales are high, there is no wastage from it going off& it is any easy product to handle, though I wouldn't ask the doctor's opinion on that, but they are definitely making money on it.

banned said...

Years ago I would arrive home from nightworking at about 07:45, the old cow in the convenience store took great delight in not serving me a couple of tins of beer until the dot of 8AM.
It took a week or so to figure out buying it the day before.

I can well believe that smoking in a confined space in front of children may not be a good thing but Miriam, meningitis purleeees.

Anonymous said...

That's right: in retail margin is king. Furthermore, even if the supermarkets WERE taking a loss on beer (which they aren't) they would certainly NOT reduce the price of everything in store were minimum pricing introduced. The market price for a tin of beans is what the customer is prepared to pay for it, retailers work on volume of sales.k