Nannying fussbucketry - it's enough to drive you to drink!

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Tracey Crouch MP who is one of parliament's leading health fascists has sent out a 'report' from her All Party Parliamentary Group on Alcohol Abuse. It is - no surprise - a collection of every favoured piece of intervention from the temperance, New Puritan and prohibition campaigns - health warnings on wine bottles, lower drink-driving limits, minimum unit pricing for alcohol, advertising controls and - gleefully jumping on some nonsense from Gary Lineker - sponsorship bans.

The proposals says Tracey are needed because:

“We are experiencing nothing short of a national crisis in the UK because of alcohol – we need to act now to stop it.”

Now we know this is arrant nonsense - alcohol consumption has fallen by around 20% over the past decade and the sharpest falls have been among young people. We already have some of the highest taxes on booze in the world and we invest millions in nannying the hell out of drinkers.

But our Tracey knows better - she waves as £21bn 'cost of alcohol' figure as justification. Yet we also know that this figure - even if it is remotely accurate (which it isn't) - fails to take account of the benefits we get as a society from alcohol. Not just the pleasure a drink brings for most of the population but the wages of over a million people employed making, distributing and serving drinks. Plus the billions our economy gains from the export of drinks - whisky, gin, beer and assorted other drinks are a major export industry for the UK.

Tracey Crouch and her like are po-faced spoilsports, judgemental nannies who use the problems of a few to punish the pleasures of the many. Their proposals would make for a duller, less happy and more controlled society, one where tutting little fascists with clipboards patrol the lives of ordinary folk.

This nannying fussbucketry -it's enough to drive you to drink!

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Shock as prohibitionist finds Drinkaware and British Institute of Innkeeping are funded by the drinks industry!

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There is an academic called Jim McCambridge at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine who has written some stuff about charities receiving benefit from the drinks industry. Specifically, this tin-pot health fascist suggests that somehow we can't trust these charities because of their links to the drinks industry:

The Alcohol Industry, Charities and Policy Influence in the UK, published this week, looks at major charities in the UK that are both active in alcohol policy and funded by the industry.

These are Drinkaware, which receives 98 per cent of its funding from the industry; the Robertson Trust, which is almost completely funded by the whisky-maker Edrington, itself controlled by the trust; and the British Institute of Innkeeping, which is funded by membership fees and member services.

According to the LSHTM researchers, Addaction and Mentor UK also receive industry funding as well as public sector grants. The study notes that these two charities share office space above a pub.

In Mr McCambridge's somewhat warped world, funding from corporations is always self-serving and that support for these charities is part of a wider strategy to pull the wool over our eyes about the evils of alcohol. Now Mr McCambridge, despite working at a medical institution, isn't a medic but a sociologist and social worker. Nothing wrong with this of course but it rather muddies his authority to speak of these matters. So far as I am aware nothing in Mr McCambridge's study suggests particular expertise in business strategy or charity law. And, just for completeness, Mr McCambridge's main funder (for his substantive research into drugs policy) is the Wellcome Foundation, a charity entirely funded from the pharmaceuticals industry.

What this report has done is pretty straightforward - Mr McCambridge has visited the public site of the Charity Commission and looked at the report and accounts for the charities his disapproves of and has found out what he already knew - they receive all or part of their funding from the drinks industry. It wasn't exactly a secret but from this public information, Mr McCambridge has manufactured a sinister world where charities funded by the drinks industry are having a major influence on the setting of policy in public health.

Central to this argument is that Addaction and Mentor UK didn't join in when various organisations walked out of the government's Public Health Responsibility Deal in a huff. Now I'm pretty sure the government would welcome Mr McCambridge and his pals back onto the panel looking at alcohol policy - alongside representatives of the drinks industry, the retail business and the food industry. So moaning that Addaction and Mentor UK influence policy is frankly a bit pathetic - all the bodies that walked out could influence that responsibility deal if they just got their knickers untwisted.

This report is just another example of dissembling by the prohibitionists and killjoys who want all of us to pay because a few people have a problem with booze. And the saddest part of Mr McCambridge's pathetic little rant is that the charities he attacks are all doing dreat work either funding research and social programmes, delivering drugs and alcohol support or lobbying on responsible drinking. These are the good guys - Jim McCambridge isn't.

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On that clever online booze advertising...

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It seems that the evil drinks industry isn't very good at the online stuff:

"The research found that some of the big alcohol brands - and subsectors - are vastly under performing in social video.

"For wine and spirit brands, the opportunity to increase brand awareness and sales conversion rates through social video is huge, as there has been very little mass movement from these brands in creating shareable video content.

"Additionally, leading brands like Diageo and SAB Miller that have very strong market share are lagging behind competitors when it comes to social video share of voice."

Hey ho.

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Quote of the day...

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From Tim Worstall:

...better England drunk and free than ruled by puritans.

Absolutely!

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Why attack this man's small pleasure?

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There we are in the checkout queue at Morrisons. Ahead of us is an elderly gentleman with a small basket of goods – a pack of bacon, a couple of small tins, some apples and a couple of cans of beer. All this grocery was taken from the shelf filled with goods being cleared out and hugely discounted.

The beer? That was at 45p a can – well under the proposed minimum price. Somehow, I don’t think this elderly man was going to “pre-load” himself before heading out on the town to create mayhem and disorder! He’s much more likely to be a poor pensioner who, once a week, buys a couple of cans to drink while watching racing on the telly.

Yet, minimum pricing will target him – he will pay extra. Or more likely, buy just the one can. How exactly does making this man pay more help anyone, save any life or reduce any crime? What benefit does society get from making this man’s life just a little more expensive, just a little less pleasant? I can see none but with minimum prices that is what we get.

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"Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk." - A budget for smugglers

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by !

The decision of the Chancellor to raise duties on alcohol and tobacco is, yet again, a great gift to Britain’s smugglers. With each rise in duty, with each imposed cost increase, the damage to legitimate business – pubs, corner shops, small brewers and such all dying, strangled by an unholy alliance between the New Puritan, the treasury mandarin and the criminal.

Last year, Brian Lenihan, then Irish Finance Minister explained all this:

I have decided not to make any changes to excise on tobacco in this Budget because I believe the high price is now giving rise to massive cigarette smuggling. My responsibility as Minister for Finance is to protect the tax base. I have full confidence in the effectiveness of the current multi agency approach but early in the New Year I want to explore what further measures we may need to stem the illegal flow of cigarettes into this country.

But let’s explore a little further and remember that this isn’t just about cigarettes but, in the UK, concerns beer as well. Pete Brown, beer writer extraordinaire, wrote today about the problems with beer and observed that people have shifted from fine ale to cheap wine and cheaper spirits:

Liver disease is increasing because people are switching from beer to stronger drinks.  We already know this though, because this has been true of every major alcoholism epidemic in history.  In the gin epidemic of the eighteenth century, beer was part of the solution, not the problem, as the immortal cartoons by Hogarth show.  It should be seen as that today.

But why is this? And why has the big drop in alcohol consumption been in on-sales – drinking in the pub – rather than off-sales – drinking at home? Firstly, the big brewers have shifted their attention from the boozer to the fridge – their volume now comes from people buying boxes of 24 bottles rather than going to the pub and drinking six pints.

Secondly, the smoking ban – people have started drinking at home or at a pre-arranged ‘smoky-drinky’ in some friend’s garage.

And thirdly, the price of booze makes smuggling and illegal production worthwhile – and you’re not going to get those products in the pub. And, if you’re smuggling, it makes sense to concentrate on the strong stuff which means wine and spirits rather than beer. The shift from beer to stronger drinks isn’t simply down to choice, it’s down to an ever larger chunk of the market being in the hands of criminals.

Kipling’s poem rather romanticises the smuggler but the true picture isn’t like that at all. These smugglers are the same sort who’ve been in the illegal import game for years, they already operate and control a multi-billion pound business doing just that:

An online report published by the Home Office in 2006 has estimated the UK drugs market to be worth £4.645bn in 2003/4^[8], with a margin of error of +/- £1.154bn.

And, as we know, the people who run this smuggling business are prepared to use murder as a business tool.

So tell me New Puritans, would you prefer your daughter to get cigarettes from the corner shop or from the same man who sells cocaine, heroin and crack?

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Save us from the nannying fussbuckets...

The Prime Minister - tempted here to call him "nannying-fussbucket-in-chief" - has visited a hospital somewhere in the North East where he's chosen to share his wisdom with us on the matter of alcohol. We're told:

...the last decade has seen a "frightening growth" in the number of people who think it is "acceptable for people to get drunk in public in ways that wreck lives, spread fear and increase crime", many of them under the legal drinking age.

A frightening growth, Mr Cameron? Show us where it's hiding for the truth is that consumption of alcohol, alcohol-related crime or anti-social behaviour and the incidence of binge-drinking have fallen over the past ten years. Yes, folks - fallen.  And the biggest fall in consumption has been among 18-24 year-old men.

So why do the nannying fussbuckets keeping on with this "growing problem" nonsense?

The objective of course is prohibition - the "denormalisation" of drinking. This is, for the Church of Public Health, a moral crusade, the abolition of a normal pleasure for millions of people simply because these people - these nannying fussbuckets - disapprove of it.

Injury from sports and physical exercise costs the NHS more than drinking does - the hospitals are filled with people suffering from breaks and sprains, bashes and bruises. Yet no-one is calling for rugby or horse-riding to be banned or for a gym tax.

These people simply disapprove of people drinking - especially young working class men.

So I have a suggestion for Mr Cameron - next time you want to make announcements about boozing make them in a busy pub in front of real live drinkers. See how they respond!

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The price of prohibition....

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We are all familiar with the impact of prohibition - organised crime, alcoholism, poisoning and an ever more frantic failure of public authorities to control. And there are parts of America where - because of the wholly racist idea that Native Americans can't hold their drink - prohibition is still in place:

The tribe lives on the Pine Ridge reservation, a 3,500 square mile area which has an estimated population of between 28,000 and 40,000, and includes the site of the Battle of Wounded Knee

It is one of the poorest places in the United States with 80 per cent unemployment and an average estimated life expectancy of between 45 and 52, the shortest in mainland North America.

Alcohol has been illegal on the reservation since 1832 but is readily available in Whiteclay, which is just 200ft from the edge of Pine Ridge. 

Now the problem here is that business people in Whiteclay have realised that, because the authorities on the reservation ban booze, there's a great opportunity to flog its residents drink. Or more to the point, sell it to 'criminals' who bootleg the beer onto the reservation for illegal resale.

And it isn't watery lager they're smuggling but stronger brews (at least 10% ABV):

According to local people two of the most popular drinks on the reservation are Hurricane malt liquor and and Evil Eye malt liquor. 

This is not a consequence of the retailer nor is it the fault of the manufacturer - it results entirely from the stupidity of prohibition. And suing drinks companies for millions of dollars won't solve the problems of the reservation - indeed problems with alcohol aren't the cause of those problems but are rather a symptom. I'm guessing - don't know for sure - that for most of the reservation's residents, life is not very pleasant. No work, poor schools, isolation, loneliness and the departure of anyone with the wit and skills to get on in life.

But it's much simpler to blame someone else - especially if that someone's a big multinational drinks company!

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Is Sarah Wollaston telling porkies or simply misinformed?

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Sarah Wollaston, anti-booze campaigner has penned a withering article in Politics Home where she says:

In 2010, the ONS recorded 8,790 alcohol-related deaths in the UK but this is a gross underestimate as it excludes accidental deaths, road traffic accidents, impulsive suicides and homicides. Alcohol causes around 22,000 deaths per year.

This is factually incorrect. Here are the real (or real as we can get) numbers for 2010:

·         Deaths attributable to drink-driving  - 250. This figure has been falling steadily for several years, matching the decline in alcohol consumption since 2002. Deaths are at their lowest level for 30 years.

·         Deaths from fire attributable to alcohol – 113. Again this is a declining figure – the Institute of Alcohol Studies (not exactly a pro-booze organisation) estimates that “...in 47% of cases, the victim was under the influence of a substance of some kind at the time of the fire. In 33% of the cases, the substance was alcohol”

·         Deaths from drowning attributable to alcohol -  68. Again the Institute of Alcohol Studies estimates that alcohol “...was a factor in 13% of the cases”.

·         Workplace deaths attributable to alcohol – 35. Again this has declined steadily – partly because of much-maligned health and safety regulations and partly because of fewer high risk workplaces

·         Home accidents attributable to alcohol – 400. The IAS attributed 10% of accidents to booze and there are around 4000 deaths from home accidents each year.

·         Homicides with links to alcohol – 455. This assumes that 70% of murders in the UK are in some way drink-related which is at the top end of IAS estimates. And murder rates are at their lowest levels for a long time.

·         Suicides linked to alcohol – 3365. Again using to higher IAS estimates. The UK suicide rate is not rising.

I make it 13,256 deaths – still a lot but nowhere close to Dr Wollaston’s 22,000 deaths. There needs to be an adjustment for accidental deaths (other than poisoning which is included in the 8790) outside the home. However, the total number of deaths from “external causes” is only 11,000 or so which includes those suicides.  There certainly aren’t nearly 9000 alcohol-caused accidental deaths outside the home – people would have noticed!

Why do I think that the good doctor – or whoever feeds her data – is just making stuff up?

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Drinking Causes Cancer - the New Puritans play their Ace...

"Two glasses of wine a night triples risk of mouth cancer, government warns"

So screams the Telegraph today as it reports on the Church of Public Health's latest advertising campaign:

Television adverts which start running on Sunday evening will say that drinking "just a little bit more" than recommended daily limits for alcohol increases the risk of serious health problems. 

Apparently - although neither the article not the government cite the evidence for this or tell us about the actual risks - we are three-times "more likely" to get mouth cancer if we exceed daily recommended limits. And (what a surprise) the article features prohibitionists arguing for a minimum price for alcohol.

Drinking causes cancer! The biggest card in the New Puritan deck...

Over the past forty years alcohol consumption has risen considerably (up to 2002/3) and then fallen sharply. If there was a link between alcohol and mouth cancer you would expect the incidence of this condition to reflect that rise and fall. Here is a chart from Cancer Research UK showing mortality from mouth cancer from 1971 in the UK:




The incidence of this disease hasn't shifted at all over that time. I'm not saying alcohol isn't a risk factor but it doesn't seem to be a big one!

Perhaps they should ask why mouth cancer is the single most common cancer in Pakistani men?

In high-risk countries such as Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, oral cancer is the most common cancer in men and may account for up to 30% of all new cases of cancer compared to 3% in the UK and 6% in France.

Food for thought...

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