More Puritan Nonsense

Once more, medics think that telling us what to do is more important than healing sick people. This time, that totalitarian, puritan, media whore, Liam Donaldson is lecturing parents.

Parents who allow their children alcohol at home may be increasing the chances of future drinking problems, says England’s chief medical officer.

Sir Liam Donaldson accused some parents of a “laissez-faire” approach and said letting children taste alcohol to ready them for adulthood was “misguided”.

Evidence showed that this could lead to binge drinking in later life, he said.

Really? Really? I do find myself becoming increasingly annoyed by the constant stream of totalitarian, puritan, interfering, busy-bodying arse-dribble coming from this evil little fat fuck. It is not up to this arrogant poltroon to decide whether parents are “misguided”.

My parents introduced me to alcohol at around the age of ten or eleven. Their rationale being that it would demystify it if I tried it in a controlled, supervised environment. And, did I go out binge drinking in later life? No. Indeed, I have never been drunk. Yes, really. On a couple of occasions I was a little light-headed and that was about it. By the time I was in my early twenties, I realised that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and slowly stopped. At fifty one, I am teetotal.

However, Sir Liam described the idea of a glass of watered-down wine for a child as a “middle-class obsession”, and criticised the approach among some parents towards their children getting drunk.

The only obsession I observe is that of Liam Donaldson’s obsession with other peoples’ business. Indeed, his use of “middle class” as a pejorative term tells us that this man is nothing more than a nasty little puritan socialist and unfit for his job. A job, frankly, that should not exist.

“The science is clear – drinking, particularly at a young age, a lack of parental supervision, exposing children to drink-fuelled events and failing to engage with them as they grow up are the root causes from which our country’s serious alcohol problem has developed.”

Ah, yeah, the “science is clear” argument. Where have we heard that one before? Look, the dangers posed by excessive alcohol consumption are well known. If people choose to go ahead anyway, that is their business – not least, given that those “safe limits” are one hundred percent, gold plated bollocks pulled out of the ether and can be safely ignored as such. The only problem here is Liam Donaldson.

We should be left alone to decide for ourselves what is enough or not. We should be left alone to enjoy a dram or two should we so wish without the chief medical officer wagging his finger disapprovingly – because it is none of his business if we drink or how much we drink and if we choose to educate our children about it.

Where there is a problem as a consequence of alcohol abuse – punish the perpetrators for the crimes they commit. Leave the rest of us alone.

First they came for the hunters, but I was not a hunter, so I said nothing.

Then they came for the smokers, but I was not a smoker, so I said nothing.

Then they came for the fat people, but I am not fat, so I said nothing.

Then they came for the drinkers, but I am not a drinker… Ah, yeah, okay, I get the message.

The state is not your friend.

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Update: James Dellingpole neatly skewers Donaldson.

But perhaps his argument might have carried a little more weight if Sir Liam didn’t have such a long history of crying wolf. This, remember, is the same doom-monger (“Private Frazer”, as The Spectator‘s Rod Liddle has nicknamed him) who cheerfully assured us that between 50,000 and 750,000 of us were likely to die of avian flu (actual death toll: zero) and that perhaps 60,000 of us would be finished off by swine flu (deaths in England so far: 178). Earlier this year, he put satirists out of business by inventing the concept of “passive drinking”. This, he explained, was a bit like “passive smoking” – only with booze instead of fags – and resulted in precisely 3,393 deaths every year.

Indeed. The best thing we can do with any advice offered by Liam Donaldson is ignore it.

That’s why, this Sunday, my children and I will be raising a glass to the final days of Sir Liam.

Quite right, too. And if I drank, so would I.

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Another update: I see that CF writes almost word for word… Great minds thinking alike or fools seldom differing?