Saturday 20 November 2004

And Andrew Gray...

... asks why the government doesn't ban drinking as well as smoking.

I give it ten years or so.

Gillian Bowditch makes this observation:

Whether you applaud or abhor the government’s decision to crack down on obesity and on smoking in public places, the fact that Big Alcohol has been left to police itself is intriguing.
It looks like the normally sensible Ms Bowditch wants the political classes to "do something" about alcohol. She realises why nothing's happened yet:
Ultimately, the biggest stumbling block to tackling alcohol abuse is perhaps the fact that so many of us enjoy a drink. While less than 30 per cent of us smoke and only 20 per cent of us are obese, more than 90 per cent of us - in other words, 40 million British adults - drink.
Whatever happens at Westminster it seems inevitable that we will have to endure some sort of left wing regime here in Edinburgh for many, many years. The urge to ban and regulate will not go away, so why not go for an alcohol ban? Outrageous, you will be saying. Criminalise whisky production? Close all of our pubs? Well, we could wipe out the evil tourist industry once-and-for-all, thus ending the need for Scots to be "servile" to visitors who've probably got too much money anyway. The horrible truth is that plenty of our politicians do think that way. Mark my words - if alcohol isn't banned within 10 years, the campaign will certainly have started.

1 comment:

David Farrer said...

Comments made on previous template:

Young Fogey
Angling next. And a roll back on the liberalisation of drug law enforcement on public health grounds, I would suspect. 
 
The manner in which the current anti-tobacco hysteria is proceeding is very similar to the alcohol prohibition movement a century or so ago. Drink used to be 'the curse of the working-classes' (according to the middle-classes, of course), now it's fags. And the English speaking and Scandinavian countries, laden with a heavy dose of Protestant and post-Protestant puritanism, lead the charge.

22 November 2004, 11:36:41 GMT
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Rob Read
Meat eating first.

21 November 2004, 21:53:04 GMT
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Tom
Oh god, please don't give them ideas! 
 
Seriously though, how much more of this puritanitcal stuff are we supposed to take before there is a major backlash? Surely the Tories, if they have any sense, will start to position as the anti-puritan party.

21 November 2004, 21:20:00 GMT
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David Farrer
Perhaps "us" refers to adults and not the entire population. And, as we know, no one under 18 touches alcohol - especially here in Scotland.

21 November 2004, 19:26:38 GMT
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Neil Craig
A mere nit to pick but the British population is almost dead on 60 million. 90% of 60 million is not 40 million.

21 November 2004, 19:09:09 GMT