The Tories are confident of winning the next election. They probably will, too. When that happens, many left-leaning blogs imagine that those they call right-wing (which is everyone who doesn’t agree with them. I’ve even seen the SNP called right-wing!) will fall silent, and it’ll then be their turn to rage against the machine.
Not going to happen, in this case at least. I don’t care about ‘left’ and ‘right’, these are just labels and they have lost most of whatever meaning they ever had within the last few years. Along with words like ‘racist’ and ‘Nazi’, they have been bandied around so much, in such irrelevant and inappropriate situations, that they are no more than vague terms of abuse now. We might as well go back to calling each other ‘cad’ and ‘poltroon’ for all the effect the current round of words have.
The Tories are so confident that they are already making pronouncements and already spinning the figures. Doesn’t look like Dave’s Change is going to be all that much different after all.
Here comes one of the New Puritans now. Shadow Home Orifice Monster, James Brokenshire, has decided that we all drink too much. Not that we have any reason to, oh, no. It’s all because of those deadly 24-hour drinking laws that the Terrible Labour let through. The Lovely Tories plan to take them back and control us some more. No smoking in pubs, and soon no drinking and no talking.
Data obtained by shadow home office minister James Brokenshire shows that the number of deaths related to alcohol rose 40 per cent to 7,341 between 1999 and 2008.
Rose from what figure precisely? Well, let’s see. Working backwards gives an original figure of, interestingly, 5243.57 for 1999. Don’t bother arguing about ’rounding up’. Look at his figure. It’s not rounded. It’s a ‘spammer’s number’ – the sort of thing spammers use when trying to get you to hand over money because a precise-looking figure is more believable than a round number. So, working with the Monster’s made-up number, someone in 1999 was only half-dead from alcohol related illness. If you’re going to invent your data, try to make sure it matches up.
The difference between the figures is 2097.43. That’s 200 people a year, roughly, over the period mentioned. Out of a population of 60 million, that’s not too harsh a level of alkies, I’d say. In fact, 7500 represents 0.0125% of the population. Even that’s not a huge level of alcohol deaths, even if it was real. It will include the meths drinkers and the sherry-bottle-in-a-bag park bench brigade, most of whom die of exposure after drinking themselves insensible in winter. It will include the drunk drivers who mistake a tree for a parking spot.
It will also include anyone involved in a collision with a driver who was over the limit, whether or not the drinker was to blame. If you drive over the limit and someone crashes into you, it’s going to be your fault no matter what. That’s the best reason not to do it. Whatever happens, you’ll get blamed. Everyone involved in every accident where one or more people was over the limit (not necessarily pie-eyed) is counted.
Everyone involved in a fight where one or more were drunk, is counted. Everyone who stumbled into the road and was mown down by a sober driver doing twice the speed limit, is a drink-related death. He’s also a traffic statistic and if he was smoking, they claim him too. If he was also overweight, he’s died four times.
The reason all these Terrible-Thing-related deaths increase so fast is that the definition of what constitutes a related death is cast wider and wider. Jimmy Brokenbottle is well aware of this. He’s anticipating the reins of power and the yoke of control and getting ready to take over where his predecessors leave off. Interfering in every little detail of our lives until we can be arrested for wearing the wrong kind of hat.
Mr Brokenshire said: “I am increasingly worried that the Government’s decision to introduce 24-hour drinking is having a real impact on antisocial behaviour in our town centres and not nearly enough is being done to tackle it.
Drunk and disorderly is an offence. Why not arrest the disorderly drunks and leave the jolly, quiet drunks alone? Drink does not make people violent and abusive. What you see there are violent and abusive people who happen to be drunk. Arrest them. Leave the quiet ones alone. Is it really so complicated?
The Tories will continue the Ban Frenzy just like Labour. There will be no change. Rather than tackle violent and abusive people, who might be difficult to deal with, the Tories will criminalise us all and then arrest the easy targets. So they’ll fill quotas and make not a jot of difference to the violence. Just as Labour are doing now.
Lest we think he’s forgotten the Great Victim:
“The impact on services like the NHS really can’t go on. The Government seems to be completely unaware of the enormity of the problem of binge drinking in our society and its effects on society and our communities, and its tragic consequences.”
Does anyone know what the NHS is for? I thought it was there to cure the sick and heal the injured. Apparently not. We are to pay for it but we must never use it. There are already mutterings about withdrawing treatment from smokers. There are already murmurs about how expensive it is to treat the fat. Now it’s too much bother to treat drinkers. NHS treatment. Only the pure of body and soul need apply. The NHS is there to patronise the healthy and kill off the sick as fast as possible. That seems to be the Tory line these days. We must protect the NHS by living pure lives and never going there. For what it’s worth, I’d advise you to avoid going there anyway. They have diseases that are yet to make the news.
Where did binge drinking come into the figures? He’s added that in for effect. The figures make no distinction whether the deaths were due to a binge or a glass of wine. He sounds just like the hysterical harpies we have running the country now, and he has no more idea of what to do about it than do they. The ‘enormity’ of the problem affecting less than 0.0125% of the population is his hobby horse. I certainly won’t be voting for this party. It’s New Labour with a different rosette.
Expect no relaxation of the derision pouring from blogs when the Tories take over. They are going to be exactly the same.
Even the SNP are starting to look very similar indeed. Their new booze rules come into effect in September and will make no difference at all to the dedicated pissheads, but will inconvenience everyone else. Since they won’t work, and they know it, they’ll be drafting the next level of control now. Just like all the other parties.
Why am I sure it won’t work?
In India, few people can afford licensed booze. Just the situation our government wants here, because they believe if we can’t buy it, we can’t drink it. In parts of India, booze is banned. Our politicians would love that – no booze, no alcohol problems, right? Well, perhaps they should read this little article for a taste of the effect their meddling will really have on alcohol-related deaths. Or this one. Or how about a situation where brewing or drinking alcohol is punishable by jail or the lash? Will that help? Booze is easy to make but it’s also easy to get it wrong. As the price goes higher and control gets tighter, more people will try, and more will get it wrong. The NHS had better brace themselves because they’re going to be very busy indeed.
The Tories had better brace themselves too. They’ll get no easy ride from the blogs.