ThunderDragon Blog

Peter Mandelson is actually doing something positive for the country! I know that you’re probably sceptical of this, but it’s true - he is indeed:

Peter Mandelson is at the centre of a Whitehall row over a planned clampdown on cigarette sales which threatens to overshadow this week’s Queen’s Speech.

Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, is said to have legislation which would ban big displays of cigarettes – effectively forcing their sale under the counter – “ready to go” as a key part of the Government’s programme for the next 12 months.

However, Mr Mandelson’s department, Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), is said to be objecting to the proposals on the grounds that they would harm the profitability of small businesses during the slump. (The Telegraph)

Even though this is likely to be nothing to do with the Dark Lord himself, at the very least he isn’t overruling his department.

This legislation would make the credit crunch and recession even more devastating than it would otherwise be for small retail businesses, something I thought the government were supposed to be trying to prevent - albeit rather poorly - rather than cause?

Even if we ignore the economic case against this, the personal choice one is more than strong enough alone - people know that cigarettes are bad for them and can decide for themselves whether or not to smoke.

Maybe Mandelson can redeem himself one tiny iota by saving us from such horrific legislation, born of an unholy alliance between economic imbeciles and nanny-staters.

The “happy hour” in pubs and bars will no longer exist if the government gets its way. They want to make it illegal for them to have happy hours, offer time-limited free drinks, and “all you can drink” offers, as well as cans and bottles of alcohol and adverts to all carry cigarrette-style health warnings.

I objected to the signs on cigarettes packets, even though I don’t smoke, for the simple reason that those who smoke know the risks and continue to smoke anyway. And the same goes for those of us who drink alcohol. We know the potential bad effects and choose to drink anyway. And the costs that both smokers and drinkers put on the NHS are more than covered by the tax levied from them.

This tightening of the law is in contrast the 24-hour drinking laws Labour passed only a few years ago, which began allowing some places to sell alcohol 24 hours a day.

Politicians spout off about cheap alcohol without actually thinking about it and the way to achieve their aims in the long-term. They want to reduce the amount binge drinkers and drunken brawls, right? So they should persist in creating real 24-hour drinking and enabling people to drink whenever they wish.

It is up to us what, how much, and when we drink. Not the Nanny State.

David Cameron has given a speech saying, basically, what we all know to pretty much be the truth. Basically, in the words of the Telegraph, “the obese, the idle and the poor have no one to blame but themselves”.

I have an issue with the inclusion of “the poor” in that list - being poor isn’t a choice, and anyone with half a brain wouldn’t be. And being poo can be caused by so many issues that are way beyond the control of any individual.

However, “the obese” and “the idle” certainly have no-one but themselves to blame. They can do something about it. Cameron is saying what needs to be said.

We as a society have been far too sensitive. In order to avoid injury to people’s feelings, in order to avoid appearing judgemental, we have failed to say what needs to be said. We have seen a decades-long erosion of responsibility, of social virtue, of self-discipline, respect for others, deferring gratification instead of instant gratification.

Instead we prefer moral neutrality, a refusal to make judgments about what is good and bad behaviour, right and wrong behaviour. Bad. Good. Right. Wrong. These are words that our political system and our public sector scarcely dare use any more.

There is a difference between right and wrong, and taking personal responsibility is essential to knowing this difference.

People are responsible for themselves. No-one else can take do so. And it is about time that politicians stop making the State stop taking on this responsibility. This is the only way to fix our broken society.

This is a sign that an incoming Conservative government would start to roll back the State in to its place.

ASDA are my hero of the day.

In response to the SNPs nanny state proposals to crack down on cheap alcohol, they have declared:

There is nothing to stop companies looking at expanding their home shopping network or opening up depots just south of the border and delivering to homes in Scotland.

So if the SNP continue with their stupid idea, they will build distribution centres in England and sell cheap alcohol to Scottish homes.

Good on them!

Apparently, according to the SNP, “high-strength, low-cost alcohol is not a right.” Erm, why? It is my money that I am spending and my body into which I am poring it. So yes, it is a right for me to be able to buy what I want at the cheapest available price.

The right to buy cheap alcohol from an off-licence or alcoholmarket supermarket is not something that they should be allowed to take away without a fight. I fully support ASDA in seeking to preserve the rights of Scotsmen to drink alcohol at the price they wish to pay for it.

This government just keeps on plowing out illiberal shit. Anything to prevent us from being able to make our own decisions and take responsibility for our own actions.

First of all, they want to ban cigarette vending machines and packs of ten. To “prevent children and young people smoking”. They have already raised the cigarette purchasing age to 18 and banned smoking in all public enclosed areas, and just want to keep on with their vendetta against smoking.

Let me make one point clear now: I am not, never have been, and never will be a smoker. But I believe that smoking and smokers should not be villified or outlawed.

Cigarette vending machines are used by one in six child smokers. The simple way to prevent these underage children smoking is, for vending machines, to make them credit card operated.

But the other five in six children buy cigarettes from shops. The way to combat this is not to make packs of 10 illegal or to remove cigarettes from view - which will be counter-productive since it will make cigraettes even cheaper ["Under current pricing, a packet of 10 cigarettes cost about £3, compared to nearly £6 for 20"] and make them more mysterious and elusive and hence appealing to children - but to provide simple education to children in school about how smoking can cause them such large problems.

The only good thing about the proposals above is that it’s not quite as illiberal as this idea for smokers to have to purchase licences.

This proposal is just as illiberal, but I just can’t be arsed to rip it to shreds right now.

They just can’t leave us alone, can they?

Firstly, the Scottish “Government” wants to raise the age at which alcohol can be legally drunk to 21. Why? Because “we all know that Scotland as a nation has a drink problem and the implications of this are very serious - not least for our health.” So because of the potential of some health problems caused by a few youngsters habitually over-drinking, they are considering banning all under-21s from drinking alcohol completely. And what exactly will stop them crossing the border to England - assuming the Union still exists - and getting drunk there and then coming back? Nothing.

And on the English side of the border the British Government - as we’re not allowed an English one - wants to ban all cigarette vending machines and force cigarettes to be sold from under the counter. Like I said when this idea was originally suggested, banning the sale of cigarettes from vending machines or making them being sold from under the counter won’t prevent under-aged - or just “young” - people from smoking. They have already banned smoking in public places and raised the smoking age from 16 to 18, but now that just isn’t enough for them. It really is just a case of Nanny State bansturbation.

We can’t they just leave us alone? It is our health and our money to do with as we please. Bansturbation won’t help, and will just make the problem worse by increasing the mystique of smoking and cigarettes. The only way to reduce the bad effects of smoking and excessive alcohol consumption is through education about the effects it has on our body. Then leave us to make our own choices, whether they be good or bad.

Supermarkets sell alcohol. They have an entire section set aside for it, well marked and often sud-divided and sign-posted by type - beers, wines, spirits… - and people then choose to buy them because they want to drink.

Apparently it is a bad thing that they are allowed to do this.

It seems that us mindless proles just aren’t clever enough and don’t have a strong enough will be steer clear of these well-marked sections, and are instead “lured” into buying alcohol. After all, we’re not Professors, so we couldn’t possibly be able to resist the call of supermarket advertising and make our own decisions about what we want to purchase.

Alcohol is cheap - and often sold as a loss-leader by supermarkets - because people want to buy it. They don’t want to “lure” people in to buying a product which will reduce their profit margins. The best people for that are the idiots who purchase “organic” and “free trade” produce, on which supermarkets can make up to 25% profit.

We all know that alcohol is bad for us should we drink way too much of it over a long period of time. We all know that. But we drink anyway, because we want to. Like the British Retail Consortium says, no-one buys alcohol accidentally. It is a conscious choice made by a rational human being.

It’s not up to anyone else to tell us that we can’t buy alcohol at a supermarket any more. Especially based on such a ridiculous basis as “health” or to “combat Britain’s binge-drinking culture”.

Just bugger off leave us alone, Professor le Grand.

Also go and read Mr Eugenides take on this story. Well worth a read.

Why won’t they just leave us alone?

Why is it any business of the government what price supermarkets sell alcohol at? Why? If there was even one good reason, it might be acceptable to even a slight extent. But a good reason for this doesn’t exist. At all.

If I want to drink alcohol, I will. And I am as I write this post. And yes, this is beer bought from a supermarket at their “cheap” price. If they want to sell alcohol as a loss-leader, that is their prerogative as a private business. If I want to buy and consume lots of cheap alcohol, that is my right as an individual.

And they blame the one good law that Labour have brought in in the last decade: 24-hour drinking. Not that it actually exists anywhere…

It’s not up to the Nanny State what I do with my own body, whether or not they think it’s bad. It is my work that earns me my money that I use some of to buy alcohol from the supermarket at the price which they want to sell it to me at. At what point in that is the government involved? I already pay tax on the money I have earned, and then more tax on the alcohol when I buy it.

I don’t care that “[f]igures released last week showed that half a million people or 1,200 people every day - are being admitted to hospital each year after drinking too much.” That’s the choice of that tiny number of people who drink alcohol. They have drunk too much at that time. But so what? Everyone does it at some point. Anyone who claims never to have drunk too one at one time is either lying or seriously boring.

Supermarkets choose to sell their alcohol as a loss-leader [or to offer wine coupons] because they want to. And why is it anything to do with the government? It’s their business for crying out loud!

Why won’t they just leave us alone? Please?

The number of volunteers in Britain has fallen by a quarter in the past decade. I’m not overly surprised by that, even if a quarter is a large number. But I don’t think that it can possibly be claimed to be directly the government’s fault for failing to support them.

Volunteers don’t volunteer because the government does or doesn’t support them - they volunteer to do some good in their community or elsewhere. They volunteer to help others in some way. What the State thinks matters little to them.

Instead, it is indirectly the government’s fault. This is because they have fostered a society of reliance on the State rather than the individual. At the same time as this, they have made it progressively harder to volunteer - CRB forms being quite possibly the biggest offender. Not because they are in themselves a bad idea, but just because the Criminal Records Bureau are so damn slow! They have also extended it to cover too many situations.

I am both a Scout leader and a St John Ambulance first aider. I don’t do them for purely altruistic reasons, because I do them because it makes me feel good to have done them. There are two ways that people decide to become Scout leaders or otherwise involved in the Movement: (a) Their children join Scouts and they get dragged in, or (b) they are Scouts and want to give others the chance to do it. That’s my reason. I am a Scout leader because I want to pass on the fantastic knowledge and experience that I got as a Beaver, Cub, Scout and Venture Scout. I want todays children to be able experience it as well.

Some people forget - or simply don’t realise - that Scout leaders and first aiders don’t get paid. They get nothing from doing it but the experience and knowledge that they are doing something good. It was fantastic to see the Scout contingent in the Remembrance Sunday parade yesterday and the voice-over reminding people of this fact - it is all voluntary.

The reason the number of volunteers has declined is because the government has indirectly stifled independent charity in favour of State redistribution. But nobody works for the State for free, yet thounsands will work for charities for free. The amount of paperwork surrounding volunteer charities needs to shrink, and it needs to be simplified. Or else the volunteer won’t be just an endangered species, but an extinct one.

Source: The Telegraph