Liberal Vision

Ban the barmy BMA somebody please..

I feel a rant coming on.

The BMA has announced that we should “become the first country in the world to introduce a comprehensive ban on alcohol advertising, sponsorship and promotions in an attempt to curb the binge drinking culture”.

 Where do i start ? We have had a binge drinking culture since Mead was the drink of choice and good Saxon girls were told on their mothers knee to avoid marauding Scandinavians. I do not believe that was because there were huge advertising boards on the beaches of East Anglia recommending the local Saxon ale. And Lets be clear. We have some of one of the strictest alcohol advertising codes in Europe.

And what is all this about banning alcohol sponsorship? The BMA might want us to believe that because a football tournament is sponsored by Carling, the amount of lager we consume rises dramatically as a result – but it just doesn’t. People drink prior and post a football match because, for many, it’s part of the Saturday afternoon ritual. And a quaffing a pint of beer before a rugby game or a having a glass or two of chilled chablis on a Sunday afternoon watching the cricket, are all essentially British pastimes. Sport benefits massively from the injection of finance and support at every level of every game down to local pub footie and cricket teams. Banning sports sponsorship won’t change our behaviour at the game or at home so sod off and leave our sports alone. It’s tough enough right now without the doctors trade union getting involved.

What is really frightening is that IF these suggestions are taken up, how long before they realise that actually the ban on advertising alcohol did NOT stop the drinking levels in the UK after all . What next ? Will it seek to ban Eastenders, Coronation Street,& Emmerdale? All of which are set around pubs and have huge child/young adult audiences that are much more likely to affect attitudes than rather gorgeous adverts by Guinness or Stella Artois? And if we are banning all our soaps, how about the Archers (they drink quite a lot) and a good snatch of our dramas, re-runs of …well pretty much all our best comedy and American comedy come to that . We will be left with David Attenborough and Songs of Praise on the box and not much else.

I noted with interest that one of the BMA recommendations in the report (item 9) suggested introducing a “compulsory levy on the alcohol industry with which to fund an independent public health body to oversee alcohol related research, health promotion and policy advice. The levy should be set as a proportion of current expenditure on alcohol marketing, index linked in future years.” Yeah right……. think we all know who will get those cushy jobs.

The other recommendations are all about alcohol adverting , pricing and number of “outlets”. Yes, (sigh) another list of actions that penalise everyone because of the actions of some. If we as a society are serious about drinking the steps we could and should be taking are to make people face the consequences of their actions. Where are the suggestions that if you turn up drunk at A&E you pay for your treatment (no, I can see that the commissioners of this report would not want that task on their members shoulders); empower employers to dock pay if you cant turn up because of your hangover; impose serious actionable penalties for drunk and disorderly and enforce them. Better still if we can have sensible reports NOT written by those with a clear interest in perpetuating the NHS, then how about we have an independent report looking into serious alternatives to the NHS. I believe that making healthcare the responsibility of every individual will make people look after their livers much more effectively than curtailing glossy ads for beer or stopping Guinness supporting one of our national sports.  If I could ban anything right now i would ban the BMA – or at least put a warning on their reports stating their bias to the NHS status quo and their members.