I caught this programme just now (on ITV1 + 1) and, in case you were wondering, it was the usual heap of gibberish and fake statistics; they interviewed the usual suspects from Sheffield University; gave a lot of airtime to Professor Ian Gilmore; and cited 'research' by fakecharities like Alcohol Concern and the British Liver Trust as if it were Gospel.
The spokesmen for the British Retail Consortium and the Portman Group were total wimps. Instead of telling the interviewer: "There is no such thing as a binge drinking epidemic, now f- off" they played along with the charade and mumbled on about what they were doing to 'minimise the harm that alcohol does to society' and all that shit.
UPDATE: JH asks 'What is the true price of a pint?', well according to the programme, the cost of the 'harm to society' when you drink a pint of beer was a staggering 91p or something. They didn't even attempt to quantity that.
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"The spokesmen for the British Retail Consortium and the Portman Group were total wimps. "
They always are. The last time I heard anyone like that stand up for their organisation was a BR spokesman who countered the argument from some do-gooder that a child had been killed on the railway because BR had not maintained its fences by saying that the fences were there to keep out animals. not children, and if parents didn't want their children killed on the railway, they should supervise them better.
Why they just don't run a "peak time" 2 hour special called "Ban Alcohol Today" and have done with it, who knows - unless of course people like Don and Sir Ian have been offered the same and replied "well, yes, that would be all well and good, wonderful in fact, but you see, the thing is, if we ever introduce the nirvana that the programme title posits, well, we would have to find something else to "crusade against" and as we look around, it seems most of the prominent "crusader" roles in the organisations that are on those crusades seem to have been filled already - still, no doubt given time and the necessary promises of support we could come up with something to ban that isn't already the subject of strident calls for it to be banned, oh and whilst I have your attention would you like to buy one of our "remember and pass it on : we are only ever one ban away from utopia" badges - only £5 - all proceeds to a good cause ...
Whenever I doubt the greatness of Henry George,I remember his Arena article on booze: he recommends a society awash with drink,sold at newstands ,coffee stalls,no licensing,competition so thorough that the pushers of booze could n't make a living selling it alone and would have to diversify into food and entertainment,the elusive (in UK) cafe society.My sole excursion into libertarianism (apart from getting rid of artificial constraints on road traffic which only speed things up).
So what is the true price of a pint then?
The true price of a pint? I remember when you could get 4 pints for a quid, never mind.
Didn't watch that programme but whenever the subject of 'binge drinking' comes up I bring up their definition of it being "three pints of beer or half a bottle of wine in one session" which is, of course, normal.
By basing their arguments on such an obvious lie they lose just as the anti-drugs do-gooders do when they say that taking drugs is horrid and that your first spliff will lead to addiction, degredation and a lonely death in the gutter when any child knows that this is not, generally, true.
Not that this will stop them following their success with tobacco; not so long ago I joked about being alcohol rationing and each of us being given some pathetic daily allowance (for our own good), I now believe that it will hapen within my reminingn years and the most heinous crime of all will be trading in alcohol allowances with a third party.
Today's news brings us >>this<<.
They're coming for us, chanting Righteous hymns and swinging those thurible things.......... oh wait. They emit smoke. No, no thirubles then.
I sometimes think there must be some form of mass hysteria going on in politicians' offices and universities. How else does one explain that none can see the plain, transparent fact of alcohol consumption consistently reducing?
Grow some balls PG and BRC.
So we cure all the ills.
What do we do with all the demented geriatrics living to 95 then ?
"The spokesmen for the British Retail Consortium and the Portman Group were total wimps. "
And look where it's getting them.
The Iron Rule of Protest Groups is that they never stop by their own will. If an organisation achieves its original objective, it either finds more of morphs into something else.
Alcohol Concern will never stop until alcohol is illegal, and then they'll find something else to work on. The only way to stop them is to expose their lies, vote for parties that would kneecap them, or refuse to give to charities (like Comic Relief) that give money to them.
And there was me all hopeful. I thought this might be a show about marginal tax rates.
A friend of mine likes to complain about the injustice of it by comparing how much extra your employer would have to spend to let you buy an extra pint. If a pint is £2 and you're earning less than £5k or so, then they'd have to give you £2. For basic rate taxpayers it'd cost the employer £3.35, for higher rate taxpayers it'd be somewhere around £3.79 (depending on exactly what they earn) and for people on over £150k, it'd be £4.55.
So in order to buy a pint of beer, the high earner has to pay more than twice as much as the low earner (in a manner of speaking).
The true cost of a pint in a pub is bloody outrageous. And the proportion of that which is tax is even more outrageous!
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