TIMESONLINE: As the middle classes face a barrage of Government hectoring over how much alcohol they should drink, one writer [Sarah Vine] launches a fightback
Something is gravely amiss in the corridors of power. First, the French go and elect themselves a President who claims not to drink wine, which is a bit like the Scottish electing a First Minister with an allergy to haggis: peculiarly unnatural. Now our own Government in London is proposing a crackdown on drinking at the privacy of one’s own dinner table. Specifically, middle-class wine drinkers, “those that are maybe drinking one or two bottles of wine at home each evening”.
Yes, that’s right, you with the leftover half-bottle of red in the fridge from last night (I always find it keeps so much better than way, just remember to take it out half an hour before you drink it); looking forward to finishing it off later on, were you? Well, if this lot get their way, you won’t be able to. If you persist, you will be branded a foul drunk, an irresponsible drain on health resources, a blot on society. You might even find yourself in a labour camp (oh, sorry, haven’t they announced that yet? I’m reliably informed that it’s at committee stage).
Aside from the fact that such a directive is staggeringly hypocritical coming from an administration that introduced 24-hour drinking (it’s fine to get completely bladdered 24/7 as long as you’re contributing significantly to the health of the powerful brewery lobbies and the Exchequer), these proposals are intolerable. Not only do they intrude on the population’s fundamental right to privacy, they are also an attempt to add a moral burden to the shoulders of the already overworked and overtaxed middle classes. These plans have nothing to do with safeguarding the nation’s health and everything to do with eroding the boundaries between public and private life. Oh, do stop wining… (more) By Sarah Vine
Mark Alexander
