Lots of comment, as you might expect, on minimum pricing.
Dr Eamonn Butler, director of the Adam Smith Institute, has described the measure as "another illiberal policy, pushed on politicians by pious interest groups who think they know how to run our lives better than we do".
Writing for Forest's Free Society website, Eamonn said:
Setting a minimum price for alcohol punishes the many for the sins of the few. The people who would be most affected would be people on low or fixed incomes – lower income families and pensioners, who may drink perfectly responsibly, but would be priced out of this modest pleasure.
Yes, people can do without alcohol, but what right has government to take that decision for them, and deny them the health and happiness benefits of moderate drinking?
Overall consumption might fall a bit, but heavy problem drinkers are not likely to be put off their excessive consumption just because the price rises. They will just spend less on other things to feed their compulsion.
The other group that the health lobbyists have in their sights is of course young people. They cite evidence of teenagers getting legless in our city centres on a Friday and Saturday night. But most of those young people staggering down the pavement would not actually be hit by the minimum price rule. They are buying their drinks in bars and clubs where the price is far more than 50p a shot.
Full article: Punishing the poor, the moderate and the sensible.
Chris Snowdon is equally outspoken. On Monday, on his blog, he wrote Minimal evidence for minimum pricing, and yesterday he posted this on the ASI blog: Six reasons to reject minimum alcohol pricing. Worth reading.
Two very quick observations:
One, my wife and I were talking about this last night and we agreed that minimum pricing will have very little impact on us because every drop of alcohol we currently consume is already well above the minimum price.
In that respect we are no different to millions of people throughout Britain, the vast majority of whom will pay little heed to this latest attempt by government to dictate how we live.
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. Like the smoking ban, which adversely affected only a minority of the population, the majority ultimately don't care because it doesn't affect them directly.
This is called tyranny of the majority and at some stage we are all guilty of it of acquiescing to it.
Two, Simon Heffer, a writer I have a lot of time for, today writes A nanny state that dictates what we drink will soon be telling us how to think .
He's absolutely right. The irony is, having been against the smoking ban, Heffer later changed his tune despite the fact that many of us were saying it was only a matter of time before politicians and campaigners moved from tobacco to alcohol.
So to all those champions of the smoking ban who are now whingeing about minimum pricing, you only have yourselves to blame.
Update on Thursday, November 29, 2012 at 8:30 by
Simon Clark
I am writing this in the cafe at 4 Millbank, close to Parliament Square, where the BBC, ITV and Sky all have studios.
A seasonal soundtrack fills the room (which overlooks the Thames). 'Winter Wonderland', 'Frosty the Snowman', Bing Crosby singing 'Happy Holidays' – making me feel quite Christmassy.
Just as well because my colleague Angela Harbutt and I are about to spend the day signing one thousand Forest Christmas cards.
I'll reveal all later.
Update: I have now heard the same songs – which are on a continuous loop – at least four times each. Feeling just a bit less Christmassy ...