PRICE PROHIBITION

The British Government supported by the Tories have launched yet another band wagon, price the drunks out of the pubs! Having just changed the law so that they can get slaughtered 24 hrs a day they have decided that in an effort to reverse the adverse effects of such a rash change to our social habits, "binge drinking" by upping the duty on booze.

Do I get the feeling that this could be another money spinning scheme. Surely the British Government know that putting up the price of alcohol does not stop people getting drunk. Look at Scandinavia. A pint of beer in Oslo costs twice as much as in London and at least THREE times the price of a pint in Blackpool. Yet the pubs and clubs in Oslo are overflowing from Thursday to Saturday. If you think its only the rich and reckless that can afford the prices, a visit to any park in Oslo will reveal a thriving population of smelly unshaven, and that's just the women, characters getting well out of their tree on cheaper alternatives such as Red Spirit (Rubbing Alchohol), glue and other more imaginative concoctions.

The Aftenposten reported, " The Norwegians are drinking ever more alcohol and one in three are concerned about the consumption of those closest to them. According to the Directorate for Health and Social Affairs, Norwegians over the age of 15 drink 30 percent more alcohol today than ten years ago."

These binge drinking loud mouthed doorway urinating members of society will not deterred from enjoying themselves because the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Chief Medical Officer of Health have conspired to up the price of a Bacardi and Coke by 10p or even 100p. You have to remember these upstanding members of society are living rent free, catered for by parents less well off than they are and have more disposable income than Gordon Brown. If they haven't got the pennies in their purses they resort to plastic. Did you not know that in the average night club and an increasing number of pubs you can buy a Bacardi and Coke on your Credit Card.

The Government will up the duty on alcohol, tell us they are going to spend it on resources to cope with the effects of binge drinking, which probably means they will employ a hapless A&E registrar fresh out of a third world medical school and is not quite sure of the difference between haemoglobin and heamohrroids! Let alone to be able to decipher the ranting of a Sauchiehall street raver after a skin full of White Lightning!