Tuesday 22 March 2011

On the sauce.

One of the biggest disappointments I have had recently was the failure of Diane Abbott in the Labour leadership contest. I mean, yes, it was very entertaining to see Miliband minority knife Miliband majority right between the shoulder blades, I love the way his lisp comes out when he gets excited and I think it is great the way that the unions rode roughshod over the wishes of the party membership and imposed their own leader. It is also wonderful the way that he’s completely failed to come up with a single policy idea thus far. But then, look at Cameron, it worked for him. Not a word, and then it was cast-iron, but turned out to be polystyrene.

But if only we’d had Diane Abbott, we could have enjoyed so much more. Like this:


But shadow public health minister Diane Abbott said the government should go further and explore minimum pricing.


Oh go on, explore it.

Of course, what she means by ‘explore’ is best translated as ‘do what I bloody say whilst I smile, nod and talk down to you as if you’re a stoat with learning difficulties.’

Before the election, Labour refused to give its backing to minimum pricing.

Well, of course they did, only the SNP are stupid enough to kick someone in the bollocks and then ask for their vote. Not even Gordon Brown was that disconnected, and that’s saying something. (Say, whatever happened to him? I understand he won his seat, but we’ve not seen hide nor hair of him.)

But Ms Abbott told the BBC if a pilot showed it would reduce alcohol-related harm she would be in favour of the move.

Well, now I’m all for innovative thinking, but what does a pilot know about the price of booze and the harm it does? Firstly, the last person I want hanging around booze is a bloody pilot, plus they’re very well paid, so it probably won’t make much difference to them, plus theres' all that duty free they can pick up whilst jetting around the place, the slags. No, pilots are well qualified, but I don't think their skills are suited to this job.

Hmmm?

Oh, a pilot scheme? Well why didn’t they say that?

"It is wrong that very young children can get out of their skulls for less money than it takes to buy a bottle of coca cola.

How young are we talking here, Diane? Four? Five? There’s nothing less dignified than seeing a pre-schooler slurring the words to a nursery rhyme, pissed out of their head on booze in the park, before losing their lunch as they come down the slide.

I think it’s terrible that we see these gangs of eight year olds, challenging adults in the queue for the NiteKlub to a fight, absolutely spanked on Advocaat.

Do you know why it takes less money than a bottle of coca cola, Diane? Do you? It is because they’re very ickle, and so don’t take much booze at all.

I’ll submit my definition here. Baby – toddler – annoying little bastard (pre-school) – annoying little bastard (primary) – annoying middle sized bastard (junior school) – annoying big bastard with no sense yet all the answers, much like Diane Abbott (senior school) – adult. OK? Annoying little bastards are ‘very young children’ in my book. Once you hit the teens, the annoyance changes form, but is still as annoying.

It’s the teens you need to worry about Diane. 

Obviously the best way of preventing these ‘very young children’ from hitting the sauce is by making everyone pay more for it. But even then, I’m not entirely sure putting a minimum price is going to make all that big a difference. If only there was another way we could solve the problem.

Hmmmm.

Ooooh! Ooooh! I know, how about the Licensing Act? You know, the one your lot introduced in 2003? The one that prohibits the sale of alcohol to persons under the age of 18?

This is such a Labour solution to a perceived problem. Ignore the existing laws which obviously aren’t well enforced enough and bring in a new one, which does the same job but in a slightly different way, will have a shedload of unintended consequences and won’t be enforced properly either.

Trebles all round.

The article continues, but Dong Shitker’s name is mentioned and at that point I had to navigate away before I put my head through the screen.

Even out of government Labour boil my piss hotter than a Japanese nuclear power station’s pool.

3 comments:

manwiddicombe said...

When minimum pricing is finally imposed on us (it will be eventually, even though the general population doesn't want it) it's not going to affect the problem teenagers who Diane is so worried about. There will be accusations from the Temperance Collective that the price per unit is too low so the price will be raised but it still wont affect the problem teenagers that Diane is so worried about.

After much head scratching the solution will seem obvious to Diane - raise the price to make alcohol so obscenely expensive that there is no way that these problem teenagers could afford to buy it - but it still won't make a difference.

Why?

I have much anecdotal evidence from one particularly troublesome teenager that leads me to this conclusion; if you are stealing something, who cares what price is being charged for it?

Snowolf said...

To whit the response:

But that's illegal.

*proceeds to bang head off desk*

Call me Infidel said...

A Home Office spokesman said the steps to tackle super-strength lagers and below cost selling would deal with the "very worst instances of deep discounting while being easily implemented and enforced".

I wish these Home Office spokemen....men? People surely? Anyway these Home Office turds. I wish they would just fuck off and die en masse.

Even out of government Labour boil my piss hotter than a Japanese nuclear power station’s pool.
So very true and beautifully expressed.