Heh! They don’t like it up ’em, do they? Of course, anyone who objected to the (illegal) minimum pricing policy must have been in the pay of big alcohol. Even me – and I don’t touch a drop. Oh, and I’m still waiting for my cheque.
There are still one million alcohol-related hospital admissions each year; rates of alcohol-fuelled crime and disorder continue to plague our streets and alcohol harm is estimated to cost the UK economy more than £25bn each year.
Ah, yes, that old canard. Those hospital admission figures are a fraud, pure and simple. Given that; no, it does not cost the economy £25bn.
With the strapline “why should responsible drinkers pay more?”, the campaign website urges members of the public to write or tweet a template message to their MP, stating that minimum pricing “will not work” and will penalise responsible drinkers.
Katherine, darling, that is how democracy is supposed to work. You know, government consults and people respond. In this case, you and your egregious fellow travellers don’t like the response – and in particular, the fact that government appears to have reacted correctly to that feedback – which is why you are stamping your foot and having a little tantrum. Too bad. Now go away and annoy someone else.
Let me make this clear for you – it is none of the state’s business what people imbibe or how much. If someone wants to pickle their liver and die in a puddle of their own urine and vomit – that is their decision, not yours, not the government’s and you have no place imposing your nasty little polices on them or the rest of us. So, no, responsible drinkers should not be penalised and you can fuck right off, frankly.
Fudging scientific evidence is a well-established tobacco industry tactic happily adopted by the drinks producers.
What was that about slippery slopes and dominoes?
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then, yes it is likely to be another nasty little puritan on the campaign trail.
With no concrete evidence or commonsense reasoning to explain why the government has decided to renege on its commitment on minimum pricing, the only conclusion to be drawn is that intense lobbying from the alcohol producers has prevailed over public health interests.
Well, given that this describes precisely the tactics used by the health campaigners, all I can say is; how does that medicine taste?
Why do these people insist on forcing everyone to live lives without any risk at all?
A life without *some* risk is not a life worth living. A life with no risks at all is just a living death.
I am a moderate drinker so don’t really care personally what the minimum price for alcohol is. However I do struggle to know what should be done about the binge drinking culture that still seems to be part of the British culture.
Should we always just let people do what they want or is the government ever right to intervene? I can think of car seat belts, using a mobile phone when driving, smoking in public places. Where do we draw the line – the cheap booze is generally bought in a supermarket and consumed at home so I guess it is fair to argue this is a private action rather than a risk to others.
That is precisely what we should do, as it is no one else’s business.
All of which are appalling laws. It is not the place of government to protect us from ourselves and in the case of phoning while driving, there was already perfectly good legislation in place to prosecute if someone caused harm by doing so. Every one of these egregious laws should be repealed. What we need is for government and all the other nasty little busybodies to butt out of our lives and let us live them as we see fit. And if that means getting pissed on a Saturday night, so be it. If people get pissed and cause harm, then arrest and charge them – otherwise let them be. If they die early as a consequence, that is their look out.