Minimum Price for Alcohol Isn't Necessary.

First, let me state some facts: I have never smoked, ever. I also rarely drink.

So, you'd think it was strange if I was against the anti-smoking laws and against minimum pricing on alcohol.

With the smoking laws, I think its too draconian. It would have been far better if public establishments were allowed to make up their own policies on smoking. Once the policy is made, its up to employees as to whether they work in a smoking or non-smoking environment. The phrase is informed choice. A normal adult should assess the risks in any activity they partake in and then decide themselves if they do it or not.

The same goes for minimum alcohol pricing. The problem is binge drinking. However, I don't see much of it on Havant high street, nor do I personally binge drink. So why should I, or any of the people in Havant be punished for a problem they aren't causing?

The answer is nanny knows best: we're all being treated like kids, because there's a section of the population that refuses to grow up. You see it in schools and even in families: collective punishment. If one of you can't behave, all of you get to suffer. 

However, we already have a law covering alcohol abuse. Anyone in public who is drunk and incapable should be liable to a being drunk and disorderly. So why aren't people that binge drink and cause trouble (the supposed reason for bringing in a minimum price) charged with that existing law? Why do we have to have yet another law that punishes everyone instead of specifically targeting the law breakers and trouble makers?

Now I have heard that alcohol pricing might fall foul of EU anti-competition laws, effectively installing a tariff on alcohol that restricts it's sale and is therefore restricts free trade. It would be an interesting court case.

Ed Milliband: Dead Man Walking.

Well, its just a matter of time before Ed Milliband is ousted by Ed Balls, as EdB has started his bid for leadership in earnest.

However, I'm not altogether sure that his his entourage have much of a plan. Agreeing with everyone about everything isn't a way to win hearts and minds. It just makes him sound like a grade A jerk.

And we haven't forgotten Ed Balls was part of the government that got us in this mess in the first place.

He didn't speak up against Labour's excessive borrowing then did he? He didn't agree with Tory "cuts" then did he?

But I'm sure enough Labour activists will be cajoled to vote him in as leader, especially since everyone in Labour have finally noticed EdM's total lack of charisma. 

Ed Balls is the least qualified person to get us out of this mess, given his wholehearted support for everything Labour did even as it drove us off the rails.

This is a "Very Good Day for Northern Ireland"??

A £580 million investment in Northern Ireland is supposed to "potentially" sustain 3,000 jobs.

That's over £193,000 per job, an obscene amount in anyone's eyes. Now, either the N.I. assembly is completely incompetent, or the jobs don't actually cost that much.

I just wonder how much of that £580 million is going on consultations, surveys, executive salaries and all the other associated perks for the privileged that soak up public funds and finance the governmental gravy train...