It was all designed to lead up to an ITV article (complete with handy plug for his new book, natch) where he lectures on "Britain's booze problem" - you know, the problem that continually declines faster than anti-alcohol preachers can ramp up the moral panic - while condemning Cameron for ditching minimum pricing.
On his blog on Sunday, he was also not too enamoured with alcohol company sponsorship of sport.
If you watch as much football as I do, you notice trends: a booze ad, then a gambling ad, then a payday loans ad. Might there be a link between the three? When the England football team played recently, hoardings around the pitch told us that Carlsberg was ‘the official beer of the England team.’ The American PGA has an ‘official vodka’ sponsor. Whisky sponsors are in sports as varied as Formula One, rugby, golf, polo and rowing. FA Cup sponsored by Budweiser.
But he doesn't blame them, according to the ITV piece.
I'm not going to slag off the alcohol industry because they are legitimately selling a legal product that rakes in billions of pounds to the Exchequer. If they are allowed to sell it 24 hours a day, why shouldn't they?
Refreshing, don't you think?
Or perhaps he feels duty bound to say that seeing as he is "strategic counsel" to Portland Communications, a company registered as lobbyists by the Association of Professional Political Consultants (APPC).
Listed as a paying customer of Portland by the APPC is none other than AB-inBev ... makers of Budweiser, the FA Cup sponsors. (click to enlarge)
Now, if he were serious about his anti-booze campaign, shouldn't he consider not working for lobbyists for companies he blames for "Britain's booze problem"?
Note, too, that another client of Portland is the Association of British Bookmakers, which makes this Twitter exchange with our esteemed mascot a classic of the hypocrisy genre.
Note, too, that another client of Portland is the Association of British Bookmakers, which makes this Twitter exchange with our esteemed mascot a classic of the hypocrisy genre.
@PhilipDaviesMP forgive me if I give this GCSE politics exchange a miss. You get back to promoting gambling drinking and punishing the poor
— Alastair Campbell (@campbellclaret) September 18, 2013
Which, of course, one could never accuse Campbell of.
Err ....
Err ....
6 comments:
Funny, unless I'm looking in the wrong place, he seems to have deleted that tweet.
Ali C is a seething mass of indignation always attacking something or another at any given time. He has to be, or he would corrode from the inside. He gave up the booze at about the same time he went through a self-destructive psychotic episode in the 1980's. Now his hate is all focused outward, lest he consume himself. He is what he is. Haters gonna hate, because haters gotta hate. He just tries to dress it up as being socially responsible and working for the good of all-- but he needs to be told what that is. He wouldn't know what that was, left to his own devices; he'd just hate.
Still there as far as I can see but I've taken a screen shot anyway.
Indeed, I've encountered the same. Truth has trouble penetrating highly-funded propaganda.
I'd definitely consider it if I knew what storify was. ;)
Good points about public perception. The media and the spin doctors have created an environment in which factual reality is becoming irrelevant. People now believe what hey choose to because it has become increasingly difficult to discriminate between fact and carefully spun fiction. This is not a good thing and neither is Alastair Campbell.
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