The (lottery) funding of fussbucketry...

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You'll recall a fuss over how old folk are getting drunk and fall over rather too much for the liking of the public health fanatics. Indeed, it is one particular set of fussbuckets - the Royal College of Psychiatrists - who are leading the charge on this one:

A group of experts from the Royal College of Psychiatrists says there is a growing problem with substance abuse among older people, who they describe as society's "invisible addicts".

The report says a third those who experience problems with alcohol abuse do so later on in life, often as a result of big changes like retirement, bereavement or feelings of boredom, loneliness and depression.

But the extent of the drinking is hidden because unlike younger drinkers, more older people drink in their own homes, the report suggests.

Far be it for me to say that these older folk a drinking because, hell, they like getting sloshed and, since they've retired they now see absolutely no reason not to do so.

Any way these fussbuckets have persuaded the National Lottery to stump up a load of cash (£25 million to be precise) to:

The Big Lottery Fund will make a £25 million award to one partnership to develop a portfolio of projects which will also generate learning to influence and inform policy and practice in preventing alcohol misuse amongst older people aged 50 and over. The scale and scope of the investment means that the award will be made to a partnership of voluntary and community organisations that can work together, drawing upon wide ranging expertise to deliver projects and interventions that provide a wider evidence base of what works for policy makers and practitioners. Potential UK leads have until 24 October 2013 to submit their first stage application. 

Essentially the lottery are stumping up the cash for Alcohol Concern and others of that ilk to polish their lobbying skills and thereby to persuade government that old folk getting a little tipsy is a major public health crisis. Doubtless this money will fund campaigns to ban drinking in old folks homes, to develop new ways of 'screening' for drunken wrinklies (drunken in this context seems to be having drunk a couple of small sherries or one large whiskey) so that doctors can find yet another thing to hector and stress at said old folk.

When I think of all those cricket clubs wanting pavilions, those village halls that need fixing and those befriending services for lonely people that could use a bob or two, I can't help but think that all those people's lottery money is being misused to prosecute an ideological obsession of the public health business. Quite frankly I'm inclined more towards the Leg Iron attitude to old age and retirement:

I’m getting old too, I have seven years until my little pension kicks in and by then it’ll be just enough. I plan to spend most of it on booze and along with some other old scientists I know, maybe try class A drugs. Can’t touch them now, I need my brain to make money but at the end of life hey, get those experiences in while you can.

The lottery's there to help good causes and, however hard I try, I can make out lecturing old folk about drinking to be a good cause. This is just £25 million of unwanted, annoying and unhelpful nannying fussbucketry.

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Time to thank John Major...

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Amidst all the self-congratulation of current political leaders as their frankly pathetic game of claiming a bit of "credit" for the Olympics (how fast in the other direction would Boris, Ed and Dave have run had the event been less of a triumph), we really should take a moment to thank John Major.

"My original vision for the Lottery was to fund a renaissance in sport, the arts and our heritage. I saw the opportunity to fund projects the Treasury would never be able to afford". 

Whatever we may think of the lottery - its regressive nature, the way it squeezes out other fundraising and doubts about gambling - there is no doubt at all that without it British athletes would have done less well at these Olympics.

Thanks to the unique contribution of National Lottery players our athletes are being given World Class support as they prepare for London 2012 and beyond. A proportion of Good Causes money raised by The National Lottery is targeted at our most talented athletes and has helped to land 438 Olympic and Paralympic Games medals since lottery funding began.

And the National Lottery was - more than anything else - John Major's creation.

I guess we should thank him. It would be more credible of politicians to do this rather than seek political advantage from the Games. Yet I haven't seen Dave or Ed or Boris or Seb turn to camera and say those words - "without John Major insistence on the lottery funding sport, these games would have been less successful. Thanks John."

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