What Part of…

…it’s illegal do these twats not comprehend?

Plans for a minimum price for alcohol in England and Wales are to be announced by ministers.

Shops and bars will be prevented from selling drinks for less than the tax they pay on them.

The minimum pricing would work out at 38p for a can of weak lager and £10.71 for a litre bottle of vodka.

Prof Ian Gilmore, of the Royal College of Physicians, said in practice it was a “small step” with “no effect at all on the health of this nation”.

Look, you bastards want to be a part of the EU –  for better or worse. Fine, but that comes at a price and one of those is the laws on competition. You cannot place a minimum price on alcohol because your masters in Brussels won’t let you.

I suspect Timmy may be right on this one.

I’ve really never understood all these campaigners for such a minimum price. They’ve been told often enough that it would be illegal. So why do they still argue for it?

1) They’re ignorant?

2) A much more depressing idea: knowing that they can never actually gain their goal they also realise that it’s a great campaigning goal. So they can continue forever to campaign, be important, be given money, but never actually achieve the end which will make them redundant?

What really worries me I think is that as I age I’m becoming less inclined to attribute attitudes or campaigns to reason 1) and more to reason 2). I didn’t actually think it was possible for me to become more cynical about British politics but I seem to be managing it.

Join the club.