It appears that the coagulation are swiftly removing the last vestiges of being any different to the last bunch of shits with the myriad announcements on health, lifestyle and general nudging being made in the past few days.

Longrider has a great post on just this subject, to which I will add this little piece from the BBC :

Duties on super-strength beers and lagers are to rise next year, the Treasury has announced.

Tax on beers and lager over 7.5% ABV (alcohol by volume) will increase from autumn 2011 although the exact amount will not be known until March’s Budget.

…

However, duties on beer below 2.8% ABV will be reduced as part of efforts to encourage greater production and consumption of lower-strength alcohol.

And why would they be doing this?

Simple – more so-called nudging :

The move is designed to encourage production and consumption of lower-strength beers.

Encourage – yes that’s it.

Nothing to do with the constant righteous interfering that we have had for going on 14 years now is it?

The annoying thing personally is that it will just raise the price of a nice bottle of Belgian Trappist Tripel and do nothing to reduce consumption.

Why we have to endure this constant drip, drip, drip against alcohol I have no idea. All they really want to do is tax the bollocks out of it like everything else whilst disguising it as “helping” people make healthy choices.

Reading from Lansley’s speech, I noticed this chilling sentence which is nothing more than a prodnose charter in disguise (emphasis mine) :

Working with industry, the voluntary sector, non-governmental organisations, and leading experts from the field, it should lead to, for example, better food labelling, more information about the harmful effects of alcohol, and a much greater contribution from industry into campaigns such as Change4Life.

So, thats less hectoring from the government and more hectoring from fake charities and associated gobshites.

As an aside, I noticed this fucker seems to have taken over from Old Man Shenker lately who must be in rehab or something, judging by his silence lately :

Professor Ian Gilmore, chair of the alcohol committee of the Royal College of Physicians, said he welcomed efforts to reduce the number of people who died prematurely every years from alcohol-related illnesses but the measures were “very disappointing”.

He said the focus should be on beers and lagers over 5%.

“It almost amounts to window dressing,” he told Radio Four’s World At One programme. “It will go no way towards impacting on the amount people are drinking and the harm they are doing.”

He wants to stick to his day job as highly paid butcher and stop poking his nose into everyone else’s fucking business.