Lamb slaughtered
Sunday, May 19, 2013 at 14:00 Dick Puddlecote has written a follow-up to my post about health minister Norman Lamb.
See Norman Lamb: Perfect example of the genre. Now that's what I call a Sunday roast.
Sad, really. By all accounts Lamb is a fine constituency MP. Nor is he a bad bloke. Far from it.
A few years ago I shared a platform with him at a Westminster Health Forum event on alcohol. I described it - and Norman Lamb - thus:
The first session, chaired by Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb MP, began on cue at 9.05 and finished, on schedule, 40 minutes later. There were four panellists - Professor Sir Charles George (British Medical Association), Cathie Smith (British Institute of Innkeeping), the rather fearsome Professor Mark Bellis (Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University), and me ...
I was the last to speak ... In my allotted time I expressed scepticism at the extent of Britain's "binge drinking culture" and the ever-changing definition of what constitutes "binge drinking". I also voiced concern that if the scale of the problem is exaggerated, then the reaction to the problem will also be exaggerated (eg Boris Johnson's booze ban).
Alcohol, I said, is a legal consumer product. (Sound familar?) Adults have every right to purchase alcohol, to consume alcohol, and to enjoy alcohol. People have every right to "binge drink" or get drunk, if they so wish. And if, when they get drunk, they become boorish or bad-tempered, fall asleep in their chair or wake up with a hangover, they have every right to do that as well.
What they DON’T have the right to do is to become violent or aggressive or threaten people and damage property. But we already have laws – and a police force - to deter that sort of behaviour, so I see no need for yet more rules and regulations. Or to tar all drinkers with the same brush.
The audience (a mixture of MPs, peers, civil servants, health professionals, PR execs and people from the drinks industry) seemed a bit non-plussed. When I confessed (shock horror) to being an occasional binge drinker myself (according to government guidelines) there wasn't a murmour - not even a titter.
It wasn't my best performance but I must have made some impression because Norman Lamb prefaced his closing remarks by saying, "Simon Clark issued a challenge". (Challenge? I'd hardly started.)
Inevitably, though, he concluded by saying that the evidence (of the harm allegedly caused by binge drinking) supported a "powerful case for society to intervene". (Funnily enough, he said much the same in his opening remarks so no-one can accuse him of inconsistency. A decent chap but better, perhaps, if we'd had someone more impartial in the chair.)
Full post: Driven to drink (Taking Liberties, October 22, 2008)
Reader Comments (2)
"A decent chap"
I appreciate you're very diplomatic, Simon, but using that term to describe somebody who turns so much he almost falls over is pushing the boat out a bit.
I contest "decent chap" Simon. He may be pleasant, affable and socially acceptable but can we really call people who advocate ever increasing state intervention in the lives of individuals decent? The potential consequences of "plain" packaging for tobacco products are such that I believe no decent person could support the policy.
Lamb also appears to be spineless and without conviction but I suppose that is simply normal for a modern politician.