Chief Medical Officer drives me to drink
Monday, March 16, 2009 Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales, is in the news again. In his latest annual report, published today, he unveils proposals to set minimum prices for alcoholic drinks. The cheapest bottle of wine, it is said, would cost £4.50 while the Independent reports that:
Stronger New World wines, many of which harbour more than 10 units of alcohol per bottle, would cost upwards of £5. Own-brand spirits, which may contain up to 40 units per bottle and which are currently sold at a loss to encourage shoppers, might double in price.
Ministers, including the PM, are said to be "lukewarm" about the idea. Undeterred, Donaldson has vowed to continue his campaign, calling on people to acknowledge the existence of “passive drinking” — the effects of drinking on other people. Sound familiar?
I'll leave you to comment. Me? I'm off to open a bottle of Arriero Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon 2006. Hopefully, when I'm sober in the morning, "Sir Liam Donaldson" will be nothing more than a very bad dream.
Simon Clark
Fingers crossed, I will be discussing this issue later today on The Alan Titchmarsh Show (ITV, 3.00pm).
Reader Comments (31)
I wonder if this actually has the opposite effect, eg. "I sure paid a lot for this bottle of gin so I'll damn well make sure I enjoy it!"
Tom Harris has blogged about this and mentions that he's joined a working group on pubs (closures).......
http://www.tomharris.org.uk/2009/03/16/a-pause-for-thought-ill-drink-to-that/#comments
BTW I heard Julian Le Grand today (in connection with this subject) state that the case for 'passive drinking' is more substantial than that for 'passive smoking'. But, of course, drinkers are in the majority but smokers aren't, hence the 'lukewarm' response of HMG. God, I can't tell you how much I loathe these b******s.
The quote from The Mash that I left on TH's blog is also apposite here:
"And as for my health, following a quick glance at my tax bill I’ve decided that the NHS will treat me and the government can keep its fucking opinions to itself.”
I drink very little, when I do usually it is wine or Pimms. Wine I buy in the little bottles, where currently, at Morrisons I can buy 4 of these bottles for £5 and that suits me. Sometimes I will have them for weeks before having a drink and then may or may not drink the 2 glasses they contain. This means that I can end up tipping away the remaining wine.
If prices go up, I will still want and enjoy my little indulgence but will be conscious of the much extra cost and therefore make sure I finish what I have paid for! Will this lead me to become more of a drinker, I wonder?
The smoking ban has certainly led to me smoking more!
Is it likely, that should the government follow Liam Donaldsons ideas again, that they will, again, shoot themselves in the foot?
People were warned that once the health fascists got away with targeting smokers they would turn to drinkers, fast food and chocolate eaters, fizzy drinks etc. Already in the past week we have seen a doctor wanting to tax chocolate, a school searching lunch boxes for contraband foodstuffs, a minimum pricing structure for alcohol and talk of penal taxes being put on sugar. The genie is out of the bag and these nutters will not stop.
I must say that I find it kind of funny as at least us smokers were right and the non smokers who allowed us to be discriminated against are seeing what sort of beast has been created. Society has sleepwalked into giving power to these non elected zealots and now everyone will suffer.
I am again reminded of Pastor Martin Niemoller's poem 'First they came for the Communists'.
The weasel word in all this is 'unit'.
Has it occurred to this idiot that his proposal is just another tax on the poor. I enjoy a good single malt and rarely pay under £20 a bottle. The cheap supermarket stuff at under £10 a bottle I never purchase. Presumably my favourite tipple will not go up in price whereas the cheap whisky will rise 40%. No wonder HMG rubbished it before the ink was dry on the report.
Simon - If you do make it onto ITV today, can you make the point that doctors are not in the business of socially engineering society to their own preferences. Stick to medical matters Donaldson and leave the rest of us to make our own lifestyle choices.
It would be interesting to do a survey of anti-smokers, who were so in favour of the smoking ban and see what they think about being preached and bullied to by HMG/NHS. The genie was let our the bottle and boy what a monster it is turning out to be!!!
Hi joyce you carnt possibly loathe these B.....S more then I do. I never voted for F. ....Face donaldson to tell me what to do.I shall keep smoking until i say there is a no smoking day.I hope that all the anti smoking facsists really regret supporting the no smoking ban especially if they like a drink or a bar of chocolate. We all said once they had got away with the smoking ban they would start on drinkers and obese people how right we were. Donaldson I cannot stand the sight of him he a fat F......er anyway, he should get on with doctoring instead of sticking his nose in everyone's pleasure.Maybe there are a few people that take advantage of drink but that is no reason for making everyone pay more. Get a grip of the binge drinkers and leave the rest of us alone.The only words that seem to come out of these doctors mouth is put the price up thats the only thing they know how to do.Whats wrong with having proper licenced hours in supermarket for purchasing alcohol. That wont do that because the government will lose some VAT. This government along with their so called advisors can go to hell. How much does donaldson get paid just to say lets put the price up.
"The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions. Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions." - Obama - 9/03/08.
The above extract is from a Presidential memo to all USA.government departments. Each department has 120 days to set in place a procedure to ensure this.
Cat among the pidgeons or what!!
Alcohol affects different people in different ways and to varying levels. The vast majority who have a drink do not become dangerous or ill. There are already laws in place to curb the minority binge drinkers. Raising the price just gives more money to the government.
Bogus science supporting the myth that smoking is dangerous needs no further mention here.
Crisps are made from potatoes. They contain Vitamen C. Salt has always been essential to sustain both human and animal life. Blood sugar levels must be maintained and sugar, in some form, is essential to health.
As for children's lunch boxes being raided, what a fearful Gestapo-dominated life we are giving them. Chocolate is being confiscated from lunch boxes. Emergency survival rations given to troops, mountain climbers, etc., have always contained chocolate - a sure source of energy and mental wellbeing.
Oops! The date on Obama's memo is 9/3/09, of course.
Blame my inattention on lack of salt, sugar, alcohol, caffein, nicotine, potatoes and bread.
TITCHMARSH INTERVIEW:-
Well done Simon - all points covered, several times. You also had a little friend there and both were up against the weak Ken Livingstone. A distinct shift towards truth on TV ar last.
Brilliant stuff..
I've just been reading the evidence upon which this proposed increase was based - a Health Service report written by people from Sheffield University. I didn't get very far because it became "Temporarily Unavailable". Spooky, eh? It appeared to be based on studies from anywhere but the UK, and relied heavily on that last refuge of the scoundrel, the meta-analysis.
I have been watching some GMTV this morning and they have reported that obesity can reduce life expectancy by 10 years and being up to 4 stone overweight can reduce it by 3 years.
To me, that could be a blessing in disguise! I would far rather enjoy the time I have here than live longer in abject misery and persecution.
Margot -
"The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions. Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions." - Obama
Would this be the SAME Obama who's committed America to the expenditure of TRILLIONS of dollars to 'fight' Climate Change ?
And this at a time when MILLIONS of Africans (choose your own example, folks) are going blind - for want of a simple operation that costs a few bucks ?
Yep - clearly a guy who'll have NO truck with Junk Science, Media-Induced Hysteria, Celebrity Rhetoric, or Big Pharma Bullshit.........
Who said the Yanks have no Sense of Irony ?
PS: Would somebody kindly explain what 'The Audacity of Hope' actually MEANS..............?
Would this be the SAME Obama who's committed America to the expenditure of TRILLIONS of dollars to 'fight' Climate Change ?
Martin V:
Softly, softly, chatchee monkey.
There can be no doubt that carbon monoxide is a deadly poison. Air quality SHOULD be cleaned up. Let's see where these two roads lead once they are combined - which they now must be.
Meantime, pouring endless billions into Africa achieves little of lasting value until their corrupt governmental systems are reformed.
Let's clean up our own houses first.
I'm surprised no-one else has commented on Simon's breakthrough on the Alan Titchmarsh show yesterday. What a coup - on so many levels - and right there on one of ITV's most popular programmes. Did you hear the thunderous applause from the audience?
He looked impressive and authoritative. Goodness knows how he engineered it. Well worth all that dining out.
I unfortunately didn't see the show, but l do hope, at some point, you will get another chance to explain, in no uncertain terms, the truth about the ETS fraud, the mother of this wave of nonsense we are being subjected to.
Margot -
"There can be no doubt that carbon monoxide is a deadly poison................."
Er, yes - but WHO is talking about Carbon Monoxide, anyway ?
It was the current fatuous (and potentially catastophic) obsession with CO2 (the one that's making Al Gore very rich and Prince Charles daft) that I was referring to.
Carbon MONoxide, though: isn't that one of those horrible by-products of Smoking ?
Or have the Laws of Chemistry changed while I've been away (wouldn't surprise me) ?
Sorry, Margot - don't QUITE see where you're coming from, I'm afraid.
"Sorry, Margot - don't QUITE see where you're coming from, I'm afraid."
There's the rub, Martin, neither can anyone else. As I see it, the whole global warming scam came from a genuine desire to clean up the quality of air. One only has to look at footage of the Chinese cycling to work wearing surgical masks amid the polluted twilight atmosphere in their inner cities. One only has to stand at a bus stop within our own inner cities to be painfully aware that the only air available to breath is thick with exhaust fumes. Add to that the smoke from factory chimneys and we create what used to be called a "pea-souper". Finding a cleaner type of fuel has got to be good.
Then Big Business spots a niche in the market and in comes global control and the creation of "targets" and buying and selling of carbon emission permits. All of a sudden, they claim, all this pollution is rising high into the atmosphere and joining up with the ozone layer to create a thicker "blanket" between the earth and the sun. Man-made global warming has been created and the earth is doomed and set to self-destruct. Every time there is a heat wave in summer, we are told it is global warming. Even the recent severe snow storms were blamed on global warming - but I haven't quite worked that one out yet.
Am I right so far? This is not a pet subject of mine.
So cleaning up the air quality is good - nobody can dispute that. BUT stating as a fact that this pollution goes straight up into the atmosphere, somehow turns itself into CO2, and actually affects the ozone layer has been proved by true science to be absolute rubbish. Only a fraction of the earth's surface has this particular form of pollution and it is more likely to come down in the form of acid rain long before the tiny bit it represents reaches the high atmosphere.
Most of the earth is covered by sea and it is evaporation from this, as the name suggests, which forms the ozone layer. The ozone layer is composed of CO2 gasses and essential to stop us burning up from the sun. CO2 gasses are essential to life.
History shows that global warming and cooling goes in cycles of about 400 years. Professional climate experts tell us that what is happening now is perfectly normal.
So the two things - a sensible desire to clean up the air in densely populated industrial nations and a sudden money-making global control theory that this same air is about to destroy the world have become hopelessly, and conveniently, intertwined.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Margot -
Thanks for that (you had me worried for a moment): I see what you mean now,and am of course entirely in agreement. Mea maxima culpa.
The Law of Unintended Consequences (though maybe not ENTIRELY 'unintended'), and all that...
'Global Warming' IS a 'pet subject' of mine, as it happens: the political, social and economic implications behind some of the
barmy proposals to 'tackle climate change' are frightening in the extreme.
How deeply selfish of the Planet to have even ALLOWED changes in its Climate after 4.56 billion years of straight-line predictability, thus scaring the booties off its child-like inhabitants.
And how richly ironic that disconsolate Communists and Big Business should now have found a Cause AND a Marketing Opportunity which they can embrace with EQUAL enthusiasm !
Yet the sheepish electorates of the West, and their even more sheeplike 'leaders' (with the courageous exception of President Klaus of the Czech Republic)) seem for the most part highly resistant to any form of rational debate ('the Science is settled'), strangely content to take their cue from the screamers in the now highly politicised Green Movement.
And let's not even mention the BBC, and its constitutional commitment to 'editorial impartiality' !
There have even been calls for some of us sceptics - aka 'Climate Change Deniers' (get it?) - to be put on trial for Crimes Against Humanity.
Clearly, some people are beginning to confuse (or should that be 'equate' ?) Carbon Dioxide with Zyklon B.
Perhaps enhanced levels of CO2 are ALSO responsible for this widespread mental atrophy -something the boys at Big Pharma really should look into.
Yes, the parallels with the Great Smoking Scam are many and obvious.
Which one, I wonder, will The People see through first ?
And will it matter what WE think, anyway - in the New World Order ?
Thankfully, some of us at least know a hawk from a handsaw..................
Martin.
Well said. I don't have your scientific knowledge but I DO have your fear of the misguided Greens and your fear for humanity if this climate change scam continues with the weight it has now.
So back to Obama! You can't beat them until you join them. It's early days for him yet. He purports to have given them trillions to continue the research but side by side with that is insisting on true science being given an equal voice.
We’ve digressed a bit from the original thread – but all in the same good cause.
I’m off now to save my own trees in my own garden.
Now lets get real you global warming deniers.
This is a real serious issue our politians are going on about, are you not afraid we may die if our leaders do not do something to save Mother Earth.After all mother is only a volcanic planet which can blow us all to kingdom come any time she chooses, not to mention our lovley sun expanding to such a degree we are all fried. So yes we need to save the planet from herself.Anyway back to that 'man'the CMO were where we....?
Now lets get real you global warming deniers.
This is a real serious issue our politicians are going on about, are you not afraid we may die if our leaders do not do something to save Mother Earth.After all mother is only a volcanic planet which can blow us all to kingdom come any time she chooses, not to mention our lovely sun expanding to such a degree we are all fried. So yes we need to save the planet from herself,so we will start with those nasty Co2 emmissions.Then we will move on to capping those deadly volcanoes. Then mother will be controlled YEAAA!THen we will have a G500000 summit to decide our next move.Anyway back to that 'man'the CMO were where we....?
Margot -
Many thanks.
I must confess, I'd never thought of Obama as a poker player...............
Bluffing is a dangerous game, though (even with other people's money).
Doubtless we shall discover before long precisely where HE is coming from.
Interesting times.................!
Martin.
I don't consider Obama to be bluffing. The global warming theory is now too deeply entrenched to be ignored or dismissed without thorough investigation. To set aside money for this research while at the same time insisting on "transparency", one of the phrases in his memo, ensures that the truth will come to light. There are sufficient knowledgeable scientists waiting in the wings. I doubt if too much of the money will be spent before it has been shown to be a mistake, and the whole thing fizzles out. There will be administration costs for all U.S.government departments and agencies to create their own safeguard system ensuring that scientific facts and statistics are verified. They have 120 days to do this. It will encompass the myth regarding smoking and many other corrupt control myths too.
I don't see any other way in which it can be done.
Margot -
"There are sufficient knowledgeable scientists waiting in the wings..................."
Indeed - and there have been for some time. Many have already paid dearly for their 'audacity' in challenging the prevailing orthodoxy (inc our very own David Bellamy).
Mr Obama (or any team of unbiased 'researchers') could begin with the petition signed by 31 THOUSAND scientists back in May of last year who positively reject the claims of the Alarmists.
Or the conclusions reached at the International Conference On Climate Change, hosted by the Heartland Institute in New York in March this year and last: both received scant coverage from the press (and none, as I can recall, from Auntie).
I shall naturally judge the man by his actions. Yet it was no less a personage than Hilary Clinton (remember her ?) who recently said of this subject that 'you can't distort the science'.
Tell that to Mr Gore, Hilary (he got an Oscar for his pains, too) !
Sadly, that is PRECISELY what her pals in the Democratic Party, the IPCC, and the legions of fellow-travellers in the Green Movement have been doing for ages.
A rational consideration of the mass of Real World data already available, as against the WHOLLY unreliable computer models, should have been sufficient to show them, if not the error of their ways (IMHO), then at least the fact that ANY notion of 'consensus' is either bogus or wholly illusory - depending on how charitable you may be feeling at the time.
I hope your analysis is correct.
Perhaps the current financial crisis might turn out to be one of those 'blessings in disguise' that one often hears of - but rarely encounters: better to destroy a few THOUSAND jobs that rely on the continuation of this fraud, than the MILLIONS that would be saved by pulling the plug on it.
But- if you'll permit me to continue the analogy - he'd have to be one hell of a cardplayer to finesses his way out of HIS recent announcements on the subject.
Going to be fun to watch, though !
Sir Liam must have some business in Wine market!
I will still want and enjoy my little indulgence but will be conscious of the much extra cost and therefore make sure I finish what I have paid for! Will this lead me to become more of a drinker, I wonder?
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