It warmed the cockles of my heart, it did! I took my daughter to the ‘Fun & Safety’ event at Hailsham Children’s Centre during this half-term week, and there for all the kids to help themselves was a table full of fresh fruit: apples, bananas, melon and pineapple, all cut up into bite-size pieces.
So many of our society’s problems can be put down to children eating junk. Sure, a few sweets and chocolates are part of childhood, and the odd meal of processed food won’t do any harm.
But a range of ills from hyperactivity and short attention spans to early-onset diabetes are fed by the habit we have got into as a nation of giving our youngest citizens the worst start in life in terms of their diet.
That’s why it was so reassuring to see the fruit table, the contents of which had been provided by Waitrose. Kids love fruit – that was obvious from the way they devoured it, especially the boys. Of course most would prefer sweets if you offered the choice, and yes, there were a few mums who had brought sweets to hand to their offspring, but for most it wasn’t necessary.
The next trick is to get the fruit to be all fairly traded. That may sound like trying to gild the lily, but it’s a legitimate aspiration that’s being taken very seriously in Uckfield and Crowborough over the next fortnight.
‘Fairtrade Fortnight’ is the kind of thing that will pass most people by, largely because every week of the year is some cause’s week. But fair trade ought to be thought of as a sign of a civilised society every bit as much as having a public health service to protect us all in our hour of need.
Several years ago I researched, wrote and presented some newspaper articles and a short programme on the BBC World Service on the ethics of sports goods manufacture. I was shocked to find that a pair of branded trainers selling for $80 had earned the guy in Asia who’d made them less than $1. In other words, the other $79 was all middlemen, marketing and profits. OK, so $1 will buy a lot more in Malaysia or the Philippines than it does in America, but it was still a paltry fee.
That shouldn’t happen, and that’s what the fair trade system sets out to tackle. It’s not a perfect system, because the minimum wage in some countries can be pitifully low as governments strive to attract first-world investment. But it’s the best system we have, and it’s a lot better than leaving everything to unregulated markets.
Uckfield and Crowborough are both ‘fair trade towns’. That’s no idle designation – there are minimum levels of free trade products that have to be offered, so they can lose their status if they don’t keep up the required levels. That’s why it’s vital that people shopping in Uckfield and Crowborough ask for free trade products – it’s both morally right, and the sign of a civilised society.
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
THE ANGER AGAINST THE BANKS IS UNDERSTANDABLE, BUT THE SOLUTION IS MORE COMPLICATED
Don’t you just hate those bankers? They’re the parasites of our society, the folks who get bailed out by the government and then pay themselves massive bonuses. Aren’t they?
Well it’s not quite as simple as that. True, the banking world has played a big part in the mess we’re in by its reckless lending and paying out of obscene bonuses. And of course it’s galling when banks that were bailed out with public money are found to be still paying big bonuses just a few months after receiving state help.
But there’s a simple truth in all this – if bashing the banks were straight forward, you can be sure the government would have done it long ago.
The problem is that taxes from banking make such a sizeable contribution to the money governments have to spend – one estimate I read put it at 12 per cent – that if we bash the banks, we will find there’s less money available for many of the things we take for granted that the state currently funds.
So how do we get round the problem? The task is to find a solution that keeps the banks contributing to the economy without them enjoying a position where they effectively hold the government to ransom.
Labour’s approach has been to introduce a tax on bonuses. That sounds all very reasonable, except it doesn’t work as there are so many ways round it.
We’re not exactly sure what the Conservatives would do if they got into government. I can understand David Cameron keeping his cards close to his chest, but it does mean he’s asking voters to take a leap of faith in supporting his party, and given the close links between Conservatives and bankers, I have no confidence that any action a Tory government would take would amount to more than tokenism.
The Lib Dem approach is to concentrate on taxing bank profits, not bank bonuses. That way the overall operations of a bank get taxed rather than just bonuses. Apart from being fairer, it would have the additional benefit that we’d avoid discriminating against people working at the lower end of the banking industry who get a large part of their modest pay in bonuses.
We have other finance policies too that are relevant to the bank issue, such as breaking up the banks that are in state ownership so they don’t become massive units that can’t respond to changing conditions; insisting that state ownership should mean an obligation to lend to solid British companies; and closing tax loopholes for the very rich so everyone pays the amount of tax they should be paying.
Despite the understandable public anger, dealing with the banks is a balancing act. What the Liberal Democrats have is a policy that aims to build a banking system of the future that is viable for the country as well as the banks themselves. That is more constructive than policies that offer a sop to popular anger, or offer nothing of substance at all.
Well it’s not quite as simple as that. True, the banking world has played a big part in the mess we’re in by its reckless lending and paying out of obscene bonuses. And of course it’s galling when banks that were bailed out with public money are found to be still paying big bonuses just a few months after receiving state help.
But there’s a simple truth in all this – if bashing the banks were straight forward, you can be sure the government would have done it long ago.
The problem is that taxes from banking make such a sizeable contribution to the money governments have to spend – one estimate I read put it at 12 per cent – that if we bash the banks, we will find there’s less money available for many of the things we take for granted that the state currently funds.
So how do we get round the problem? The task is to find a solution that keeps the banks contributing to the economy without them enjoying a position where they effectively hold the government to ransom.
Labour’s approach has been to introduce a tax on bonuses. That sounds all very reasonable, except it doesn’t work as there are so many ways round it.
We’re not exactly sure what the Conservatives would do if they got into government. I can understand David Cameron keeping his cards close to his chest, but it does mean he’s asking voters to take a leap of faith in supporting his party, and given the close links between Conservatives and bankers, I have no confidence that any action a Tory government would take would amount to more than tokenism.
The Lib Dem approach is to concentrate on taxing bank profits, not bank bonuses. That way the overall operations of a bank get taxed rather than just bonuses. Apart from being fairer, it would have the additional benefit that we’d avoid discriminating against people working at the lower end of the banking industry who get a large part of their modest pay in bonuses.
We have other finance policies too that are relevant to the bank issue, such as breaking up the banks that are in state ownership so they don’t become massive units that can’t respond to changing conditions; insisting that state ownership should mean an obligation to lend to solid British companies; and closing tax loopholes for the very rich so everyone pays the amount of tax they should be paying.
Despite the understandable public anger, dealing with the banks is a balancing act. What the Liberal Democrats have is a policy that aims to build a banking system of the future that is viable for the country as well as the banks themselves. That is more constructive than policies that offer a sop to popular anger, or offer nothing of substance at all.
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
IF YOU'RE A FRIEND, VOTE FOR WHAT WE STAND FOR
The great tennis champion Steffi Graf once told me she had difficulty making friends. It wasn’t that there weren’t people wanting to be her friend – the trouble was working out who were genuine and who were just in it for the reflected glory.
I sympathised then, and I sympathise even more now. As Liberal Democrats, it seems everyone currently wants to be our friend, but there are two very different types of suitor.
The first are those who are attracted to what we stand for, who recognise that while Labour and Conservatives may cramp the centre ground of British politics, the Lib Dems do have something different to offer, something ‘radical’ in the true sense of the word (changing from the roots).
The second are those who think they might need our support after the general election, as a ‘hung Parliament’ looks a distinct possibility. Both David Cameron and Gordon Brown are making noises about how there isn’t really that much that divides the Lib Dems from the main parties, which most people rightly see as little more than a charm offensive in the hope that they can woo post-election Lib Dem support.
As a result, journalists are now desperate to know who the Lib Dems would support – whether in formal coalition or just in Commons votes – if there was a hung Parliament. The question is even seen as reasonable, especially by those whose primary motivation is to see Brown jettisoned as prime minister or Cameron never make it to No 10.
Well it isn’t reasonable, in fact it shows a lamentable failure to understand anything other than a two-party system.
The majority of European countries have coalition governments, and the feature of them is that, in the run-up to an election, all parties campaign as if they are going to form a government. Only after the election do they start doing the sums and seeing what arrangements can be made. Failure to do it that way means parties lose their identity.
That’s why Nick Clegg is quite right not to be falling for the political interviewers’ bait. He and the rest of us want to see a Lib Dem government. We’re realistic enough to know that it probably won’t happen after this election, and may take a generation or two to happen at all. But we believe in our policies to provide the kind of government Britain needs, and we’re not going to be knocked off track by those who want to know whether we’re more blue or more red.
We stand for fairer taxation, reform of the banking system, a better deal for primary school children, reducing the burden on small businesses, and making Britain carbon-neutral by 2050. In my view, that would make a very good government programme – and it’s neither blue nor red but gold!
If we have a hung Parliament, then the sums will be done to work out what alliances would create a working majority. If we hold the balance of power, we will see how other parties have fared, notably who the biggest party is.
But that’s for then. For now, we are asking for voters to vote for a Lib Dem government. That’s why the only friends we value are those who share our view of a socially, economically and environmentally fairer Britain.
I sympathised then, and I sympathise even more now. As Liberal Democrats, it seems everyone currently wants to be our friend, but there are two very different types of suitor.
The first are those who are attracted to what we stand for, who recognise that while Labour and Conservatives may cramp the centre ground of British politics, the Lib Dems do have something different to offer, something ‘radical’ in the true sense of the word (changing from the roots).
The second are those who think they might need our support after the general election, as a ‘hung Parliament’ looks a distinct possibility. Both David Cameron and Gordon Brown are making noises about how there isn’t really that much that divides the Lib Dems from the main parties, which most people rightly see as little more than a charm offensive in the hope that they can woo post-election Lib Dem support.
As a result, journalists are now desperate to know who the Lib Dems would support – whether in formal coalition or just in Commons votes – if there was a hung Parliament. The question is even seen as reasonable, especially by those whose primary motivation is to see Brown jettisoned as prime minister or Cameron never make it to No 10.
Well it isn’t reasonable, in fact it shows a lamentable failure to understand anything other than a two-party system.
The majority of European countries have coalition governments, and the feature of them is that, in the run-up to an election, all parties campaign as if they are going to form a government. Only after the election do they start doing the sums and seeing what arrangements can be made. Failure to do it that way means parties lose their identity.
That’s why Nick Clegg is quite right not to be falling for the political interviewers’ bait. He and the rest of us want to see a Lib Dem government. We’re realistic enough to know that it probably won’t happen after this election, and may take a generation or two to happen at all. But we believe in our policies to provide the kind of government Britain needs, and we’re not going to be knocked off track by those who want to know whether we’re more blue or more red.
We stand for fairer taxation, reform of the banking system, a better deal for primary school children, reducing the burden on small businesses, and making Britain carbon-neutral by 2050. In my view, that would make a very good government programme – and it’s neither blue nor red but gold!
If we have a hung Parliament, then the sums will be done to work out what alliances would create a working majority. If we hold the balance of power, we will see how other parties have fared, notably who the biggest party is.
But that’s for then. For now, we are asking for voters to vote for a Lib Dem government. That’s why the only friends we value are those who share our view of a socially, economically and environmentally fairer Britain.
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
WE CAN’T BLAME THE DEVELOPING NATIONS FOR COPENHAGEN’S FAILURE UNTIL WE DO MORE
There was a terrible irony in the fact that the recent cold snap came over the weekend that the Copenhagen climate conference ended in failure.
The anger that many people, including me, felt when the world’s leaders failed to reach a legally binding agreement was totally justified. At the level of the negotiations, the fault did not lie with the developed nations. The EU made a reasonable offer, Barack Obama took America further than it had ever gone before, and even Gordon Brown pushed for a deal harder than his more climatically telegenic predecessor ever did.
But we would be fooling ourselves if we swallowed our own propaganda that the fault lay entirely with the developing nations. And the cold snap showed us up.
Somehow we can’t accept that the weather sometimes slows us down. We have to do everything just as normal, so we get out our snow ploughs, we crank up the heating, we drive on icy roads causing accidents and dramatically increasing our fuel consumption.
Some of that can be justified, especially for emergency service workers, and for those making sure more vulnerable members of society can survive. But how many shops had their doors wide open in sub-zero temperatures? It would be easier to say how many hadn’t. And why was all the grit used first for roads and only afterwards - if at all - for pavements? Clearly motorists are more important than pedestrians.
I went to my daughter’s school play. It was about climate change awareness, and was exemplary in the message it promoted. Then, when it was all over, two doors – one on either side of the hall – were wedged open and the hall’s warmth was crushed by an invasion of freezing cold air. After that message!
It reminds me of that comical scene at the start of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. The priest is locked in his church, the loo is out of bounds and he’s desperate for a leak, so he drinks a bottle of wine so he can pee into the empty bottle, only to find that the wine provides a new call of nature. Our modern lifestyle has created pressures on our climate that are leading to extreme weather conditions, yet our response is a course of action that uses more energy and emits more climate changing gases!
Set against this background, is it any wonder the developing nations are suspicious about our willingness to address our lifestyle in a way that will seriously reduce climate emissions? They don’t want to forego their material prosperity while we’re still unwilling to compromise on ours – and frankly, why should they? Yet we need countries like China, India and Brazil to cut down on their emissions, or there’s no chance of limiting warming to two degrees Celsius.
That’s why the 10:10 campaign has caught the spirit of the times. It’s far from perfect, but it says ‘We must do something now’ and calls on people to reduce their own personal greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 by 10%. I have signed up to it, and I hope you can too.
Because without some major gesture, there is no way we are going to get the developing nations to make the concessions needed for the world to have a truly meaningful, legally binding climate agreement.
The anger that many people, including me, felt when the world’s leaders failed to reach a legally binding agreement was totally justified. At the level of the negotiations, the fault did not lie with the developed nations. The EU made a reasonable offer, Barack Obama took America further than it had ever gone before, and even Gordon Brown pushed for a deal harder than his more climatically telegenic predecessor ever did.
But we would be fooling ourselves if we swallowed our own propaganda that the fault lay entirely with the developing nations. And the cold snap showed us up.
Somehow we can’t accept that the weather sometimes slows us down. We have to do everything just as normal, so we get out our snow ploughs, we crank up the heating, we drive on icy roads causing accidents and dramatically increasing our fuel consumption.
Some of that can be justified, especially for emergency service workers, and for those making sure more vulnerable members of society can survive. But how many shops had their doors wide open in sub-zero temperatures? It would be easier to say how many hadn’t. And why was all the grit used first for roads and only afterwards - if at all - for pavements? Clearly motorists are more important than pedestrians.
I went to my daughter’s school play. It was about climate change awareness, and was exemplary in the message it promoted. Then, when it was all over, two doors – one on either side of the hall – were wedged open and the hall’s warmth was crushed by an invasion of freezing cold air. After that message!
It reminds me of that comical scene at the start of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. The priest is locked in his church, the loo is out of bounds and he’s desperate for a leak, so he drinks a bottle of wine so he can pee into the empty bottle, only to find that the wine provides a new call of nature. Our modern lifestyle has created pressures on our climate that are leading to extreme weather conditions, yet our response is a course of action that uses more energy and emits more climate changing gases!
Set against this background, is it any wonder the developing nations are suspicious about our willingness to address our lifestyle in a way that will seriously reduce climate emissions? They don’t want to forego their material prosperity while we’re still unwilling to compromise on ours – and frankly, why should they? Yet we need countries like China, India and Brazil to cut down on their emissions, or there’s no chance of limiting warming to two degrees Celsius.
That’s why the 10:10 campaign has caught the spirit of the times. It’s far from perfect, but it says ‘We must do something now’ and calls on people to reduce their own personal greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 by 10%. I have signed up to it, and I hope you can too.
Because without some major gesture, there is no way we are going to get the developing nations to make the concessions needed for the world to have a truly meaningful, legally binding climate agreement.
Monday, 16 November 2009
VOTE FOR CONSTRUCTIVE SCEPTICISM OR WITHDRAWAL - NOT FOR A MASSIVE FUDGE!
Several years ago I was covering a tennis tournament in Germany for BBC Radio when I was asked to escort a German MEP to the commentary box. He was taking part in a discussion on Radio 4, and as he was having a day at the tennis, they wanted him to be on the quality broadcast line rather than a crackly phone line.
Chatting to this corpulent gentleman as I escorted him breathlessly up three flights of stairs, I was struck by how little we had in common. He represented the conservative CDU party, and while I’m a great believer that there’s much that unites people of different parties, his view of the world seemed very different to mine.
So I was somewhat taken aback when I saw his face on page 2 of The Independent last week, writing a comment column about David Cameron’s pledge to renegotiate the Lisbon Treaty. What struck me as he laid into Cameron’s pledge was that I totally agreed with him.
To quote from the piece, the MEP (Elmar Brök) said, “The Conservative leader’s new warning that he will seek to ‘repatriate’ powers from Brussels to London is no more realistic than the referendum he has just given up on ... I do not see any chance of passing even the very first step of such a process.”
And he added, “The EU will, as a result [of the Lisbon treaty], be more democratic, more capable of acting and more transparent, because the treaty will strengthen the principle of subsidiarity as well as the role of national parliaments. This is the biggest paradox of Mr Cameron’s stance: the Lisbon treaty will actually massively strengthen the role of Westminster.”
Quite apart from showing how isolated David Cameron is across Europe, even from conservative opinion, this shows how the Conservatives in this country are using Europe to play a game, not to offer a vision of good governance. There are many things we don’t like, but those we cannot change we have to accept and work within the defined limits, not duck out of as if throwing our toys out of the pram is somehow OK.
The fact is that the Conservative leadership is as pro-Europe as we Liberal Democrats are, but it doesn’t dare say this in public for fear of alienating dyed-in-the-wood Tories who hanker after a bygone age of an isolated but powerful England. If the Conservatives want to represent business interests, they have to be largely pro-Europe, but if they come clean about this, they risk hacking off the traditionalists.
To be brutally honest, there is very little difference between the three mainstream parties on Europe. All three are in favour of the EU, but keeping a watchful eye over the development of the UK’s right of influence. They just sell this same policy to different ‘voter markets’. While we are enthusiastic but with reservations, the Tories are sceptical but with reluctant involvement, and express their scepticism by teaming up with neo-Nazis in the European Parliament.
If people really don’t want Britain to be in the EU, they should be voting Ukip. Ukip’s arguments are fatuously simplistic and have little basis in fact, but at least the party is clear that it would take Britain out of the EU. Therefore, any voter for whom Europe is a big issue should go either for the Lib Dems or Ukip – not the Conservatives, for whom Europe is one big and dangerous fudge.
Chatting to this corpulent gentleman as I escorted him breathlessly up three flights of stairs, I was struck by how little we had in common. He represented the conservative CDU party, and while I’m a great believer that there’s much that unites people of different parties, his view of the world seemed very different to mine.
So I was somewhat taken aback when I saw his face on page 2 of The Independent last week, writing a comment column about David Cameron’s pledge to renegotiate the Lisbon Treaty. What struck me as he laid into Cameron’s pledge was that I totally agreed with him.
To quote from the piece, the MEP (Elmar Brök) said, “The Conservative leader’s new warning that he will seek to ‘repatriate’ powers from Brussels to London is no more realistic than the referendum he has just given up on ... I do not see any chance of passing even the very first step of such a process.”
And he added, “The EU will, as a result [of the Lisbon treaty], be more democratic, more capable of acting and more transparent, because the treaty will strengthen the principle of subsidiarity as well as the role of national parliaments. This is the biggest paradox of Mr Cameron’s stance: the Lisbon treaty will actually massively strengthen the role of Westminster.”
Quite apart from showing how isolated David Cameron is across Europe, even from conservative opinion, this shows how the Conservatives in this country are using Europe to play a game, not to offer a vision of good governance. There are many things we don’t like, but those we cannot change we have to accept and work within the defined limits, not duck out of as if throwing our toys out of the pram is somehow OK.
The fact is that the Conservative leadership is as pro-Europe as we Liberal Democrats are, but it doesn’t dare say this in public for fear of alienating dyed-in-the-wood Tories who hanker after a bygone age of an isolated but powerful England. If the Conservatives want to represent business interests, they have to be largely pro-Europe, but if they come clean about this, they risk hacking off the traditionalists.
To be brutally honest, there is very little difference between the three mainstream parties on Europe. All three are in favour of the EU, but keeping a watchful eye over the development of the UK’s right of influence. They just sell this same policy to different ‘voter markets’. While we are enthusiastic but with reservations, the Tories are sceptical but with reluctant involvement, and express their scepticism by teaming up with neo-Nazis in the European Parliament.
If people really don’t want Britain to be in the EU, they should be voting Ukip. Ukip’s arguments are fatuously simplistic and have little basis in fact, but at least the party is clear that it would take Britain out of the EU. Therefore, any voter for whom Europe is a big issue should go either for the Lib Dems or Ukip – not the Conservatives, for whom Europe is one big and dangerous fudge.
Monday, 2 November 2009
STRCTLY COME OFF IT!
This is a truly terrible time for sensible decisions to be made – and you only have to watch the current series of Strictly Come Dancing to see why.
Twice in the last couple of weeks we have had the government ignoring advice from experts and doing the opposite of what they recommend. First, the education secretary Ed Balls dismissed the Cambridge Academic Review’s recommendation that formal learning in primary schools shouldn’t begin until children are at least six, and then the health secretary Alan Johnson’s sacked Professor David Nutt after rejecting his advice on criminalisation of cannabis and ecstasy.
The common factor in both decisions is that the government wanted to look tough, and was willing to ignore advice on what would work best. With a general election no more than seven months away, it figured there were more votes to be won in making it look like it was getting kids doing ‘proper work’ earlier rather than playing, and in making it look like it was tackling drug abuse.
The reason for this is that many voters – especially many floating voters in the constituencies that will decide the next election – judge the issues emotionally rather than on the basis of information. And if you doubt this, look no further than the current series of Strictly Come Dancing.
For the benefit of those with lives on Saturday nights, the ‘Strictly’ format is simple. A group of ‘celebrities’ (the quote marks are obligatory this series) are paired up with a professional dancer and have to prepare short dances which are judged by a panel of specialist adjudicators.
Then the public is allowed to vote by phone. That’s when all reason goes out of the window, because the public clearly votes on the basis of emotion which has nothing to do with the issue at hand: the ability – or lack of it – to dance.
How else can one explain the survival of Craig Kelly, the Coronation Street actor who is utterly wooden in his body movements and thinks he’s smiling when he clearly isn’t? He has been pilloried by the judges, but he has survived at the expense of other contestants who have done much better on the dance floor. Why? Because Craig has an immense following among Coronation Street viewers.
That’s why Ed Balls dismissed the Cambridge paper on primary school learning before he or his staff had even read it, and why Alan Johnson fired Professor Nutt. The emotions of the voters were more important than what might be best for society. No wonder politics has a bad name!
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not opposing the principle that when you ask for advice you have the right to reject it. In all walks of life, we need to take responsibility for our own decisions, even if that means saying to a friend ‘Thanks for your advice, but I’ve weighed it up and on this occasion am doing the opposite.’
But if you’re a government minister who has spent thousands of pounds of public money on specialist advice, and you then reject it because it doesn’t fit with what your focus groups say voters will go for, then you must expect the kind of backlash Johnson is facing this week. It’s another version of bringing politics into disrepute, and I hope voters will see it as that, come the general election.
Twice in the last couple of weeks we have had the government ignoring advice from experts and doing the opposite of what they recommend. First, the education secretary Ed Balls dismissed the Cambridge Academic Review’s recommendation that formal learning in primary schools shouldn’t begin until children are at least six, and then the health secretary Alan Johnson’s sacked Professor David Nutt after rejecting his advice on criminalisation of cannabis and ecstasy.
The common factor in both decisions is that the government wanted to look tough, and was willing to ignore advice on what would work best. With a general election no more than seven months away, it figured there were more votes to be won in making it look like it was getting kids doing ‘proper work’ earlier rather than playing, and in making it look like it was tackling drug abuse.
The reason for this is that many voters – especially many floating voters in the constituencies that will decide the next election – judge the issues emotionally rather than on the basis of information. And if you doubt this, look no further than the current series of Strictly Come Dancing.
For the benefit of those with lives on Saturday nights, the ‘Strictly’ format is simple. A group of ‘celebrities’ (the quote marks are obligatory this series) are paired up with a professional dancer and have to prepare short dances which are judged by a panel of specialist adjudicators.
Then the public is allowed to vote by phone. That’s when all reason goes out of the window, because the public clearly votes on the basis of emotion which has nothing to do with the issue at hand: the ability – or lack of it – to dance.
How else can one explain the survival of Craig Kelly, the Coronation Street actor who is utterly wooden in his body movements and thinks he’s smiling when he clearly isn’t? He has been pilloried by the judges, but he has survived at the expense of other contestants who have done much better on the dance floor. Why? Because Craig has an immense following among Coronation Street viewers.
That’s why Ed Balls dismissed the Cambridge paper on primary school learning before he or his staff had even read it, and why Alan Johnson fired Professor Nutt. The emotions of the voters were more important than what might be best for society. No wonder politics has a bad name!
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not opposing the principle that when you ask for advice you have the right to reject it. In all walks of life, we need to take responsibility for our own decisions, even if that means saying to a friend ‘Thanks for your advice, but I’ve weighed it up and on this occasion am doing the opposite.’
But if you’re a government minister who has spent thousands of pounds of public money on specialist advice, and you then reject it because it doesn’t fit with what your focus groups say voters will go for, then you must expect the kind of backlash Johnson is facing this week. It’s another version of bringing politics into disrepute, and I hope voters will see it as that, come the general election.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
LET’S HAVE A GREAT TIME – WITHOUT MUCH ALCOHOL
You want to have a good time? Yes, so do I. Like most people in this country, when I go out, I like to enjoy myself. But unlike many people, there’s one ingredient I like but don’t need – alcohol.
What is it about people that they feel they have to drink to have a good time? Why is it that when people talk about going to a party, there is an implicit assumption that they will get smashed and have a hangover the following morning?
It may all seem pretty harmless, with any damage being largely done to the self-inflicter. But consider this.
Recently it emerged that the number of people landing in accident & emergency wards in East Sussex for alcohol-related reasons had increased by 131 per cent in the last six years. In 2007-08, there were 6,064 alcohol-related admissions in Brighton, East Sussex Downs and Weald PCTs.
It was only in 2002-03 that statistics on alcohol-related admissions in the county began to be collected. In the first year there were 2,624, a figure that has risen every year to make for a six-year total of 24,520. Of these, 729 have been people under 18 years old, and that age group is rising too.
These statistics are truly alarming. And at a time when there’s precious little money in public coffers for essentials, why is the NHS having to spend money dealing with a problem that is largely avoidable?
It certainly is avoidable. I know of a case in which a woman was convinced her gin & tonic at 6pm was the key to letting go and enjoying herself. So one day her daughter gave her tonic without the gin at 6pm – and she still got drunk! In other words, it doesn’t take alcohol, only the belief that it’s OK to have a good time.
It’s easy to blame retailers for selling alcohol to under-age buyers, but let’s face it, if young people want alcohol, they’ll get hold of it somehow.
It would also be wrong to overreact and try to make alcohol the demon, when millions of people drink in moderation and get great enjoyment out of it. I especially enjoy locally produced drinks, such as a half-pint of Harvey’s, or a glass of organic wine from a Sussex vineyard.
No, alcohol isn’t the demon – it’s our attitude as a society towards it. It’s enjoyable and can take the edge off us, but we don’t need it, and certainly shouldn’t have so much that we suffer and make others suffer for our indulgence.
We’ve largely got the message when it comes to drinking and driving. Now we need to get the message that it’s OK to say no even when we’re not driving – and that it’s possible to have a great time without a hangover, let alone a hospital visit.
What is it about people that they feel they have to drink to have a good time? Why is it that when people talk about going to a party, there is an implicit assumption that they will get smashed and have a hangover the following morning?
It may all seem pretty harmless, with any damage being largely done to the self-inflicter. But consider this.
Recently it emerged that the number of people landing in accident & emergency wards in East Sussex for alcohol-related reasons had increased by 131 per cent in the last six years. In 2007-08, there were 6,064 alcohol-related admissions in Brighton, East Sussex Downs and Weald PCTs.
It was only in 2002-03 that statistics on alcohol-related admissions in the county began to be collected. In the first year there were 2,624, a figure that has risen every year to make for a six-year total of 24,520. Of these, 729 have been people under 18 years old, and that age group is rising too.
These statistics are truly alarming. And at a time when there’s precious little money in public coffers for essentials, why is the NHS having to spend money dealing with a problem that is largely avoidable?
It certainly is avoidable. I know of a case in which a woman was convinced her gin & tonic at 6pm was the key to letting go and enjoying herself. So one day her daughter gave her tonic without the gin at 6pm – and she still got drunk! In other words, it doesn’t take alcohol, only the belief that it’s OK to have a good time.
It’s easy to blame retailers for selling alcohol to under-age buyers, but let’s face it, if young people want alcohol, they’ll get hold of it somehow.
It would also be wrong to overreact and try to make alcohol the demon, when millions of people drink in moderation and get great enjoyment out of it. I especially enjoy locally produced drinks, such as a half-pint of Harvey’s, or a glass of organic wine from a Sussex vineyard.
No, alcohol isn’t the demon – it’s our attitude as a society towards it. It’s enjoyable and can take the edge off us, but we don’t need it, and certainly shouldn’t have so much that we suffer and make others suffer for our indulgence.
We’ve largely got the message when it comes to drinking and driving. Now we need to get the message that it’s OK to say no even when we’re not driving – and that it’s possible to have a great time without a hangover, let alone a hospital visit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
