An April fools joke.

I saw that the The Publican ran a jolly old April 1st joke on how New Labour are planning to introduce drinking licences as a means of curbing binge-drinking and alcohol-related disorder.

As part of a move to cut binge-drinking the government is proposing that pub customers carry a card licensing them to drink outside their own homes. 

The Publican has seen draft documents apparently drawn up by pubs minister John Healey in which he outlined proposals to ensure anyone over the age of 18 entering a pub carries the credit card-sized ‘drinking licence’.

Sources within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport confirmed that such a customer licensing proposal had been discussed with a view to tackling the UK’s binge-drinking culture.

“We are looking at several ways to curb irresponsible drinking, and this is just one of the options on the table.

“If everyone who wants to drink in a pub carries a licence of the sort we are considering, it will make the job of policing trouble-spots that much easier,” the source said.

All very good, but that joke has been put forward before by John Cowen who called for drinks licenses.

With the card, people who got into trouble for, say, minor crimes or drunk and disorderly conduct in public would receive a fixed penalty notice and 3 points on their entitlement card with points disappearing over time for in the same way works on driving licences.

More serious offences would result in endorsements on the entitlement card and the cardholder would not be able to purchase alcohol, tobacco or other drugs available for sale through the entitlement card scheme.

Mind you we could have had the same April fools joke about say banning smoking

Maybe a joke as reported on BBC Pravda about forcing people to hand over their labour unpaid as slaves to the state?

Higher education minister David Lammy has backed calls for a national army of volunteers to help the UK economy out of recession.

The idea comes from a report which also calls for students to do 100 hours of "compulsory civic service".

Or maybe that classic April 1st gag, that the PM had the idea of sending single mothers off to state run gulags.

Then this howler from The Express, that Ed Balls is planning to snoop on problem families in their own homes.

THOUSANDS of the worst families in England are to be put in “sin bins” in a bid to change their bad behaviour, Ed Balls announced yesterday.

The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes

Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction.
They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.

Another classic April 1st joke from Eddy.

Thankfully no ran the really obvious one about the police stopping people taking photo's in a public place. After all that is just so stupid it could never happen here in the UK.

Best of all was the classic that New Labour opened the flood gates to millions to enforce a multicultural society on us; whilst not mentioning that in their election manifesto.

Maybe next we will get one on Labour promising us a vote on Europe and then canceling that promise, oh hang on....

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