Another little drink........

The pundits reckon that Dave played a blinder at the Tory party conference.

 

Well, good for him but as the old proverb has it ‘fine words butter no parsnips’.

 

The electorate is beginning to show signs of voter-rage.

 

The economy is going to hell in a handcart. Osborne keeps banging on about tackling the ‘deficit’, but this is not the problem. It’s the national debt, which continues to rise. Unemployment is far too high, especially amongst under-25s. Tax is a drag on growth. Health, transport, and immigration are a mess. Priority is given to foreign aid over defence. We continue to fight a pointless and unwinnable war in Afghanistan. We are fed up with the shilly-shallying over the EU and the constant interference by the ECJ and the ECHR in our attempts to get rid of foreign terrorists.

 

And yet valuable time is taken up debating ‘gay marriage’ (now there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one), abortion which we all thought settled over 40 years ago, the Chief Whip calling coppers bad names, and other inessentials. It is all drift and dither, U-turns and broken promises.

 

Dave’s latest piece of nonsense is to aver – on the basis of a 5-year old report – that we have become a nation of incorrigible drunks and SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! His solution is to put an end to the sales of cheap alcohol by supermarkets by imposing a minimum price. I always thought that the Tories were the party of free enterprise, but let that pass.

 

And his Oldies Tsar, the thinking man’s crumpet back in the 60s and 70s, is grandstanding about we oldies drinking too much. Bloody cheek!

 

Listen-up, Joan.

 

In the last ten years I have hoovered down 800 litres of Scotch, 3000 litres of wine, and 4000 pints of beer. Oh, and 150,000 ciggies as well. Most of what I have spent has gone on tax, enough to pay even your generous stipend.

 

Instead, let’s have a look at the facts.

 

Drinking peaked in 2000. Since then it has shown a steady decline, by about 12%. We know this from tax receipts.

 

But what about the problem of yoof-boozing?

 

Amongst 16 to 24 year-olds the drop has been dramatic and for 11 to 15-year old it has fallen by half.

 

Most encouraging is the fact that sales of the dreadful ‘alcopops’, specifically aimed at the young end of the market, have dropped more than 60%. Young drinkers have now turned to cider, which is far more sensible. The sting here is that cider carries a lower excise duty than other drinks, and Dave’s minimum price notion would simply jack up the cost.

 

Friday night binge-drinking by yoof may be good for the Daily Wail front page, but the truth is that convictions for drunkenness have halved in the last ten years. Drink-driving convictions have dropped by30% in three years despite more breathalyser tests being done, and the police giving priority with such sneaky tactics as offering a £500 reward for grassing up a fellow driver.

 

So git wid de program, Dave!

 

Cheers!