As a quick observation, though, you might be interested to know that the BMA has pronounced on yesterday's much-publicised manifesto from Alcohol Concern and Lundbeck Ltd's Westminster puppets.
You see, for most of us, the manifesto would seem rather extreme and largely unwarranted, including as it does:
- Appointment of a minister for boozeNot so for the BMA. And especially not so for their hero Ian Gilmore, the head of the Alcohol Health Alliance, a bunch of temperance lobbyists in the mould of 1920s America's Anti-Saloon League.
- Minimum alcohol pricing (aka "the poor shouldn't drink")
- Public health to be involved in pub/retail licensing
- More bans on beer ads
- Tobacco style warnings on wine bottles
- Scaremongering anti-drinking TV adverts
- Near halving the drink driving limit
‘The Westminster government urgently needs to start tackling the public health harms of alcohol. The measures laid out in the APPG manifesto are a crucial first step.’Well, as Pete Brown points out today, "urgent" is overwrought and only justifiable if you believe the anti-alcohol lobby's incessant lying. But he said first step, you note, and that government should start tackling alcohol - as if sky high taxation, stiff advertising regs and strict licensing/age limits don't exist.
Because, as we have always said here, the bansturbator class can never be satisfied unless and until their funds are cut off and/or politicians stop listening to them for the sake of a free and personally responsible society.
He is at least honest in admitting that there will be many, many more "logical next steps" to come. If government acceded to every proposal in the APPG manifesto, the same people would be back the very next week with more demands - from naughty tills; through bans on alcohol displays; and onto plain packaging for bottles of Chardonnay.
Every journey begins with a single step, so be in no doubt that extremist Gilmore sincerely hopes his 'crucial first' one culminates eventually in the UK's very own Volstead Act. Interfering in the choices and enjoyment of others is what he and his ilk do for a living, after all.