Saturday 3 August 2013

How Did He Get It So Wrong?

From WalesOnline:
[Plaid Cymru Arfon MP Hywel Williams, a long-standing campaigner for minimum alcohol pricing,] said: “It’s obviously worrying. The amount of alcohol consumption has gone up steadily, along with the number of outlets"
Really, Hywel? Not according to the BBC it hasn't. Nor according to latest published government statistics on smoking, drinking and drug use among young people (page 137).


Not even, in fact, according to the alcohol-despising Institute of Alcohol Studies!

I'd have thought an elected MP - especially one with a keen interest in alcohol matters - would be able to source this information easily enough. So it kinda begs a question.

Hmm, whaddya reckon?




17 comments:

Geee said...

I’d like to vote twice, please – once for “liar” and the
other for “idiot”.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Try it. You never know, it might work. ;)

Geee said...

If it works, I’ll be attempting multiple votes for both
options :)

Might even explore the possibility of hacking the voting
module to include a fourth option of “blithering, sniveling, moralizing, Narcissistic nitwit”!

Legiron said...

Why can't we click both 'liar' and 'idiot'?

John Gray said...

I suspect his big problem is trying to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, Dafydd Wigley. Although I've never been a Welsh Nationalist, Wigley was a fantastic constituency MP who really did take up constituents' problems with the powers that be and, he would really listen to people's concerns with an open mind too - provided you could back up those concerns with evidence. Wigley is a very tough act for a mediocrity to follow!

DP said...

Dear Mr Puddlecote


'Idiot' covers 'Liar' - one would have to be an idiot to lie about something the truth of which is easily ascertained.


DP

Crossbow said...

I imagine its a question of motivation - is he only stupid, or is he being deliberately dishonest.
Being a believer in Hanlon's razor, it looks a lot like idiocy to me

truckerlyn said...

It works!

truckerlyn said...

Do one, then return to post and vote again

truckerlyn said...

In fact, you can vote multiple times - brilliant!

Jax said...

Then again, it could just be that the real figures don’t match his doom-laded, image of UK society as largely drink-sodden, vomit-stained and gutter-sleeping, so he just pretended that that’s how the UK is,and hoped that no-one would stop to question his statement. Funnily enough, Frank D had an item over at his place yesterday upon which I left a comment about a recent radio programme I’d heard where another (coincidentally also anti-booze) “expert” was pushing his own ideas about the “carnage” on the roads back in the days when everyone drank and drove home before random breath testing came in. Funnily enough neither I nor any of my fellow commenters of (I assume) a similar age to me could remember this “road carnage” or anyone who suffered death or injury as a result of it.

It seems that’s the latest “thing” these days for these zealous campaigners – if life isn’t (or wasn’t) as dreadful as it needs to be to whip people into a frenzy, just pretend that it is (or was) and hope that no-one stops to compare these The-End-of-the-World-is-Nigh words with their own experience.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

I'll remember that option for the future. ;)

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Rather like the myth about smoke-filled pubs prior to 2007. There may have been some back street boozers like that but no-one who used them cared much. The big chains had incredibly effective air conditioning which eliminated all but a faint whiff if you were in a non-smoking area. There is no discernible difference in my local Wetherspoons before or since the ban came in.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Idiot and liar seem to be neck and neck. Perhaps we should ask Hywel to toss a coin and choose which it is to be. ;)

Jax said...

Yep. I was a non-smoker right throughout the 1970s and 80s (I was a late arrival to the party) and I can distinctly remember that around the start of the 1980s I began to notice that my clothes didn’t smell of cigarette smoke the morning after a night in a pub surrounded by smokers as it had in previous years. Not that I had been bothered by it previously in any case – a morning hanging outside the wardrobe (my clothes, that is, not me!) got rid of it very effectively. So I simply don’t believe all those people batting on about “stinking of smoke” the next day or “having to shower after a night out” or “having to have all my clothes dry cleaned” right up until July 2007. Ventilation in pubs had improved greatly by the 1980s (otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed the difference – I was a non-smoker, remember), and could only have got better after that. I guess some anti-smokers just love to play the “poor little innocent victim” card, even when there’s nothing to be a “poor little innocent victim” about any more.

Ian R Thorpe said...

I reject the results of your poll sir, I tried to vote for all three (the correct response) and it wouldn't let me.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

You can, but you have to do each individually. ;)