First they came for the pint glass...

According to this story in the Times, (hat tip to Devils Kitchen for that) it would appear that the humble wine drinker is next in line for the states control. The concept of free choice is one that is vanishing fast from Cool Britania.

• Middle-class wine drinkers will be the focus of government plans to make drunkenness as socially unacceptable as smoking.
• Under the plans published today, a fresh audit is to be conducted by the Government into the overall costs of alcohol abuse to society and the National Health Service.
• “We want to target older drinkers, those that are maybe drinking one or two bottles of wine at home each evening,” a Whitehall source said. “They do not realise the damage they are doing to their health and that they risk developing liver disease. We are not talking here about the traditional wino.”

Well thats nice of them to decide who drinks what, when and where. They forget that we all pay into the healthcare through our taxes, that we also pay through the massive duties imposed on drinks here in the UK.

But they don't just stop there, oh no. Recently there has been calls for higher duty of drinks, all in the name of public health of course. Nothing, I mean nothing to do with filling the coffers of a certain Mr Brown and plugging some large holes in his dubious accounting preocedures.

Then we had the call to ban special offers, you know the sort of thing. Pick up a bottle of Albanian anti-freeze and get another for the same price. Now if Mr Newsagent wants to sell off some booze and make a few sheckels profit all well and good, the state has no place in attempting to micro manage our lives to that extent.

What I and other people choose to spend their money on(that is small amount left after paying the 100 billion stealth taxes imposed by that bloody dour Scot Gordon) is their affair, not the states.

• Ministers want drunkenness in public to be as socially unacceptable in ten
  years’ time as smoking or drink-driving is today.

Yep and they shall fine and micro manage our lives to create their "Cool Britania" no matter what. Oh and they have the backing of the BMA, now this makes me chuckle as most doctors I know like a drink or twelve.

But the British Medical Association said yesterday that such measures did not go
far enough, adding that customers in licensed premises needed better information
to raise awareness of the dangers of excessive drinking and drink-driving.Vivienne Nathanson, the head of science and ethics at the BMA, said: “It is not the nanny state. It is about informed choices.

It is hard for the average person to work out how many units are in a drink these days. Glasses of wine are much larger than they used to be and many beers and wines are much stronger”.

Well I hate to correct the learned gentleman but he is wrong, the controls and displays on beer/wine and spirits are just fine thank you very much. The bottles show how many units there are and it is not rocket science as to working out how many you are allowed. Also the information is easily found if one does a simple Google search, something that the wise bods at the BMA think we are unable to do.

As for drink driving well that is a seperate issue and I shall leave that for now. My view is that anyone who drink drives should lose their license and car. On the point of beers and wine glasses being larger and/or stronger, well thats called consumer choice, if someone chooses to drink some Albanian 7.5% falling down water then thats upto them. Same as if they choose to drink the weakest girly larger on display.

Lastly and I hate to bang on about this but they are also planning curbs on glasses, if our police who have taken on the role of nanny as well as police. They are trying for a blanket ban on glass, which will be replaced with dire plastic, easy crack, fold in half, just as dangerous as real glass rubbish.

If people want to learn about beer(blatant plug warning here folks) then they could always join Camra. At £22 quid for a year it is a damn site cheaper than any plan by the nannys of New Labours fascist state. They are running a campaign for full pints, another thing that Blair promised but failed to deliver on and are against a blanket ban on shit plastic glasses. Anyway for more on Camra go here: http://www.camra.org.uk/

Health & safety nazis want to make us into children who can not be trusted with a glass, go sign this if you want to be treated as an adult and not a child. Sign this petition

One has to ask why this is just beer glasses, after all would the middle classes with their glass of wine or port like to drink it out of a plastic glass, or are the police and health & safty brigade blaming the lower class plebs? Why should the majority of drinkers who would never dream of violence have to suffer for the sins of a few larger fueled chavscum?

• We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to oppose calls by police to introduce blanket use of plastic glasses even in pubs and other licensed premises with no history of violence. We feel blanket bans on glass are unnecessary and will have a detrimental effect on the licensed trade and the drinking experience of the millions of law-abiding pub goers in well run establishments up and down the country.

Tags: BBPA, polycarbonate glasses, risk assessment, Political Correctness, CAMRA, Real Ale, Nanny State,

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