BRITAIN AND DRINKING

BRITAIN AND DRINKING In 2015 there was a seemingly endless series of mass shootings in the USA, each more horrifying than the rest. Onlookers in Britain shook their heads in disbelief as each atrocity was reported. Before the smell of cordite had left the air, the US gun lobby defended the easy availability of assault weapons and high paid lobbyists earned their keep placing the blame elsewhere. In Britain, we felt with some sense of justification, we are safe to walk down the streets without being at risk of gun violence. However, much of the British public exists in a fantasy world of its own, created for it by lobbyists, corporate media outlets and corrupted newspaper columnists who will trot out any fraud if the money is right. At the heart of that fantasy is the nation’s love affair with alcohol, a romance that has striking similarities with America’s love affair with guns. Behind both the American firearms industry and Britain’s drinks industry are powerful vested interests that lobby their respective elected officials, ensuring that the interests of business are served over the interests of the public. A recent study carried out by Professor Nick Sheron of Southampton University, co-founder of the Alcohol Health Alliance has revealed that nearly two thirds of the profits of the UK alcohol industry come from drinks sales to problem and dependent drinkers. The story that the drinks lobby likes to trot out at such times is that drinking is about choice, responsibility and enabling adults to decide for themselves what is good for them. The majority of alcohol, however, is sold to people who have no choice, for whom addiction and dependency are daily realities. The Guardian newspaper calculated that this figure amounted to £23.7 billion pounds annually, but that costs the NHS £3.5 billion a year treating everything from liver disease to the consequences of alcohol-fueled violence. As the drinks industry does not contribute a penny towards the massive social harm it does and pays nothing to the NHS, this £3.5 billion could easily be seen as a public subsidy. Each year there are a million hospital admissions from alcohol, an increase of 100 percent in a decade and the number of alcohol related violent offences in 2015 was estimated by the Office of National Statistics as 704,000. In Britain, just as in America, those who can shout the loudest scramble to head off any criticism of their corporate friends. For example when the Chief Medical Officer recently announced that there was no safe level of drinking and the health benefits of red wine were largely a myth, Nigel Farage demanded some kind of mass public protest against the ‘nanny state’. His brand of beer and cigs populism is irresponsible - at best, it encourages drinkers to ignore the scientific research that shows the real risks of even moderate drinking. He frames the discussion as one of individual liberty and a struggle against faceless bureaucracy. However, this posturing is largely immaterial compared to the beliefs and fantasies of an entire nation. Even though the research carried out by Professor Sheron and the announcements made by the Chief Medical Officer are based on solid peer reviewed research, the stories we as a nation choose to tell about alcohol are far more compelling. In our national love affair with alcohol, drinking and being drunk have gradually been elevated to some kind of right, a freedom that no one can take away. Its harm is ignored, denied or rationalised away and those that succumb to addiction are marginalised. It is the alcoholics, however, that offer the rest of the nation an uncomfortable glimpse of the truth and ensure that no matter what we must continue with a national charade. In America, President Obama has decided finally to use executive action to push through gun control legislation, but in Britain our political class, in full possession of the facts, have decided that it’s business as usual.