Britain's prohibition culture turns to drink
Friday, April 27, 2007 
It gets worse. Alcohol Concern, "the national agency of alcohol misuse", not only wants a 16% rise in alcohol taxes, a crackdown on under-age alcohol sales, a further reduction in the drink-drive limit, a ban on alcohol advertising before the 9pm television watershed and non-18 certificate films in cinemas, it also wants parents who give alcohol to children aged under 15 to be PROSECUTED!! (Full story HERE.)
How such a law would be enforced, heaven only knows. Picture the scene: a warm summer's day; a family with three children is in the garden; everyone, including one set of grandparents, is seated at a table on the patio; dad (wearing shorts and a floppy cricket hat) is dishing out the meat, freshly cooked on the barbecue; mum (glad to be relieved of the cooking) is pouring out the drinks. The men are drinking beer; mum and gran have been given a bottle of chilled Chardonnay; the youngest child, aged 9, is offered a Diet Coke; the older children, aged 14 and 12, are each given a glass of wine, slightly diluted with water. Everyone is happy, laughing and chatting.
Suddenly they hear the front door bell, followed by a loud knock on the door. Before they can react two alcohol control officers burst through the garden gate and march purposefully towards the patio. "No-one move," barks the first officer. "We have received a tip-off. We have reason to believe you have committed a criminal offence. You don't have to say anything but anything your children drink may be used in evidence against you."
Public health minister Caroline Flint says she doesn't agree with the proposals but they all say that, at first. The fact that such a plan can be taken seriously (witness today's media coverage), rather than dismissed as the work of cranks and fanatics, shows how far our prohibition culture has come. The extreme agendas of groups like Alcohol Concern (and of course ASH) must be defeated if we want to live in a mature, civilised society. It's my view that things will get worse before they get better, but today's proposal to prosecute parents suggests an arrogant over-confidence that could prove to be their Achilles heel. Watch this space.
Reader Comments (12)
Well, maybe things have to get worse before they get better. We have all gotten used to being oppressed in so many different ways, ways that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Perhaps when it goes far enough there will be a de facto revolution.
We are used to looking back at different historical periods and seeing huge changes in society - it is harder perhaps to see that we are living through one of these changes now. Vive la revolution!
I agree things will have to get MUCH worse before people begin to wake up. Not trying to drag this back to smoking, but one of the reason's it's so difficult to get support against the smoking ban is because people don't believe it'll go any further. They scoff at the idea that alcohol or fatty foods will come under fire the same way. So I WELCOME ever more oppressive laws as maybe, just maybe, more people will begin to see the problem and start to take action and start to turn back the tide.
I am also confident that there will at some point be a backlash from a large number of people .... but when the time comes what will they do?
The problem with every revolution in history that I know anything about is that the revolutionaries replaced an old oppressive regime with a new oppressive regime. The American one was slightly different in that the original goal was to throw off the tentacles of an oppressor from overseas (King George 3) which they did, and it wasn't their goal to replace King George in England. But within a very short time they had replaced the tyranny of King George's power in America with a new one of their own making.
We are so used to the power of government that we seldom question the power itself. We question those who currently hold it and we think that if only the right people had it ... I don't believe that the "right" people have ever held power and I don't believe the "right" people even exist or could exist. I think that was a major point of Lord of the Rings.
Once anyone has the power to initiate the use of force against anyone else for any reason there will be conflict and upset. Most of us don't even realize that every new regulation is obeyed because of the threat of violence. You may think I am exaggerating. You may think that come July 1st we won't smoke in public places because of the threat of a fine and that a fine has nothing to do with violence. Well follow through on what would happen if you just determinedly said "No. I disagree with this regulation and I will not pay the fine."
We have long since passed the point where persuasion is considered a valid tool of any special interest group. They go straight for regulation. The attitude is "you do as I say or else".
So I agree with Rob in welcoming each new oppressive law as it will surely lead to a backlash eventually. But we need the focus of the backlash to be on removing the power and not just the people who use it.
I think we can manage to reverse the current situation without a outight revolt. We're still democratric in nature and what we need are leaders who're willing to dial back their own power and involvement in the lives of its citizens.
We need a visonary who's not afraid to shake things up. Successive governments have seemed to believe that answers lay in more legislation, maybe someone will emerge who'll believe the answer lies in less.
The alternative is votes slipping away from the major parties to more minority groups like the Greens, the BNP or UKIP at the local and national level.
But before ALL of that we need people to wake up, to see beyond their own comfort zones and that means more pervasive laws. I'm no different from anyone else, I just happened to join the frey before the rush PURELY because of the following; I smoke, I drive a 4x4, I play a game that involves replica guns and I drink. All of that is under attack and now I'm fighting back.
Hello, Here we go again Why cant older childern be allowed to have a drink of wine with water or mineral water? The French Childern are brought up on wine and water. This is such a Nanny state and Many people will leave this stupid Nanny state altogether. What the smoking ban. Whilst on the subject of smoking I do believe that many Hotels have panicked about smoking in the bedroom but I also think that its an extion of one own home as long as 1 does not smoke in the bar or public areas. What next I ask? This is a real nanny state. so if My niece who is 17 comes for the day I cant offer her a glass of wine !! regards Amanda H
Well, these comments from Alcohol Concern were entirely predictable, so long as you were not a journalist from the nation press (who seem to have lost the art of investigative and indepth reporting).
The smoking ban legislation has open the floodgates for the cranks and single issue charities to promote their illiberal and damaging agendas. Unfortunately, this generation of politicians do not seem to know when to make a stand and say enough is enough.
I only pray that the British electorate wake up in time and despatch this dispicable government before we are all turn into robotic, submissive drones without an independent thought process.
When the antis finish with the second-hand smoke and the use of Tobacco they will use the same tactics on Alcohol.
Alcohol is on the back burner ot WHO(The World Health Organisation)
It will be called. "Prohibition..drip by drip
Bill; Why do you think the problem lies with "this" government? I was once a Tory but that was long ago now. The only significant difference between the parties are the colour of their rosettes. They are all in business to tell us what we can and can't do and to take our money to pay for it.
Rob "We need a visonary who's not afraid to shake things up. Successive governments have seemed to believe that answers lay in more legislation, maybe someone will emerge who'll believe the answer lies in less."
They are all "visionaries" and that is part of the problem. You say they seem to believe that answers lay in more legislation. Of course it does as far as they are concerned. Laws are never repealed only added to. When a law isn't working the solution is to make a new one and claim they need more money. It is their job to make laws.
Every evening at our dinner table you will find a bottle of red wine. If my eldest son, who is 13 years of age, would like a small glass with his evening meal then he would be very welcome. If he were to subsequently develop a lifetime habit, like his dad, of having a glass of red with his dinner each day then it would probably do him more good than harm and be of no cause for concern whatsoever.
I'm not sure how common this situation is in other people's homes but here is my perception of what is normal -
parents and society completely forbid alcohol until children reach the age of 18 years. Teenagers and young adults then hit the bottle big time as they explore something completely new, previously forbidden and very novel.We then see binge drinking and hopelessly drunken behaviour every weekend. If Alcohol Concern are advocating the elastic band approach (holding alcohol back completely for as long as possible) then they may well be unwittingly contributing to the growth of the binge drinking culture. Far from helping the situation they would then be making matters infinitely worse
Reading Bills comment made me think of the the film 'Demonlition Man' with Sylvester Stallone, a 1993 film. It seemed a tad far fetched 14 years ago - perhaps not so far in the future after all!
The results of the recent mid-term local elections have proved to me that a lot of the public, generally, has not woken up. It will take a series of catastrophic events (eg. a winter of discontent as in 1978/79) to make people realise just how bad things are getting. Perhaps the forthcoming ban will be just one more 'spark to set the fire burning' -combined with other fiascos which will affect large sections of the public (such as the proposed fortnightly rubbish collections) this will annoy a lot of people and cause the build-up of more resentment. I hope so!
Will it ever occur to Britains lefties that the fundamental problem is way too many people in government. As long as we have such a vast mob of overpaid,over pensioned busybodies looking for something to do the problems will get worse.
They should heed an old American saying:
"If it aint broke don't fix it"