Scottish and Newcastle - self made victims

I fully agree with those who think that the location of head offices has an important bearing on the prosperity of different parts of the country. Edinburgh is fortunate in hosting several large PLCs and it would be sad to see the departure of the Scottish & Newcastle HQ even though their brewing activities have disappeared from the city.

But this makes one despair:

SCOTTISH & Newcastle's claim that losing its independence could undermine the government's campaign against binge-drinking was dismissed as "irrelevant" by City analysts yesterday.

Good for the City analysts. Such a claim by S&N is straight out of Ayn Rand's concept of the Sanction of the Victim

The Sanction of the victim is defined as "the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil, to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the 'sin' of creating values."

Beer is a legitimate product that S&N should be proud of. On second thoughts, I'll not be weeping in my beer if they lose their independence. Brewers should have nothing to do with the government's nanny state policies. In a free society, the only proper role of governments with regard to drinking would be to police the streets properly and deal vigorously with drunks. That's it. "Binge-drinking", so-called, is none of the government's business if no violence is involved. One can't help wondering though whether state education and welfare policies might just have something to do with certain people's lack of control.

What we really need to worry about is binge-legislating...