From this lunchtime's Evening Standard:
£10 food-and-wine deals 'fuelling alcohol abuse by middle classes'
Wine should be banned from supermarket meal deals because it fuels heavy drinking among middle-aged professionals, an alcohol abuse charity said today. Campaigners gave a warning that the popular £10 "food and wine for two" offers run by Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and Sainsbury's lure in commuters keen to "wind down", and looking to save money during the recession.
Drinking levels are higher among the middle classes than any other socio-economic group, government statistics show. Of the middle classes, 22 per cent drink on five days or more a week, compared with 11 per cent for manual workers, the General Household Survey published this year found. Older drinkers also drank more regularly, with 21 per cent of the over-45s having alcohol at least five days a week compared with six per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds.
The British Liver Trust said selling wine as part of meal deals helped "normalise" excessive drinking. Spokeswoman Sarah Matthews said: "If a couple shares a bottle a night, the women would be more than double their limit by the end of the week and the man way over. That leads to serious health problems, including liver disease and premature death. These meal deals are prominently advertised and make regular drinking at that level seem like a perfectly acceptable everyday habit. They are totally wrong. Alcohol is now marketed as a staple part of our diet, the same as life's essentials like bread and milk."
I had a look at BLT's 2008 accounts in January and established that they were part-funded by the Department of Health, i.e. a fakecharity (although the bulk of income came from pharmaceutical companies or proper charitable donations).
Notes 2 and 3 to their 2009 accounts show that they received £74,000 from the Department of Health (previous year £119,500) and £60,765 from 'Community' (previous year £39,847), so their taxpayer-funded income is down a bit. Nonetheless, they found it in the goodness of their hearts to pay £229,603 for research to two hospitals that are either part of the NHS or a state-run university.
Does anybody know why the state gives these people money in order for them to give it back to a different branch of the government? Is there any point to all this except to create jobs in administration?
What have we wrought in the UK?
3 hours ago
7 comments:
It makes my blood boil.
Why on Earth should anyone else really care about how much we drink? As long as it harms no-one else there is no case to answer.
This country is becoming increasingly Soviet. I'm scared, frankly. I am a strong believer in liberalism and have said so publicly on several occasions -I am now rather unpopular locally.
On Nikki Sinclaire: I don't know a lot about her but she is a very powerful-looking lady in the videos I've seen. I'll probably vote for her.
OT
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23762899-david-camerons-u-turn-over-the-lisbon-treaty.do
Lots of votes for UKIP.
Serious liver problems from a drop of red? Sounds like our Sarah needs to loosen up with a drop of same and some convivial company.
I need a drink after reading that....
"22 per cent drink on five days or more a week, compared with 11 per cent for manual workers"
I don't believe that for one moment, unless it is because manual workers said they prefer coke and the survey put that down as " soft drinks ".
Might this be a dog whistle for ex-Labour voters?
@paul no, the USSR was mostly happy with vodka drinking, it kept the masses under control.
@banned I can believe it: when I was a kid my middle-class friends' families tended to have wine with dinner; my working-class friends' families tended to not (but their dads would tend go to the pub on Fridays and catch up in total units consumed).
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