We are all alcoholics now

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21 units

The government recommends that we drink no more than 21 units of alcohol a week, but many people drink more? They can’t force us to cut down, can they? It seems they are going to try, at least for people on benefits. If they get away with that, how long before they try it with the rest of us?

Government policy seems to be to pick on anyone vulnerable using a divide and conquer strategy. They are going to demonize drinkers. It doesn’t stop there, they also intend to demonize fat people. They will say it’s for their own good and they should go for treatment, but is that true? They said the ‘bedroom tax’ was about people moving to smaller properties and freeing up ‘family homes’, but in truth it was just about taking benefits off the most vulnerable in society.

How long before you won’t be able to work for the government if you’re found to drink more than 21 units of alcohol a week. Do you really want a government restriction like that  on your life? Look at how they demonized drink driving and how they enforced that, if you think it’s not possible.

How are they going to ‘treat’ fat people? The doctor tells them to diet, they don’t lose weight and lose their benefits instead. How long before the doctor has to lose weight or lose his job? How long before people applying for government jobs get weighed in at the interview?

They say anxiety drives people. They work because they are anxious about paying the bills and they avoid conflict because they are anxious about it. In this highly stressed rat race, the government is advocating even more competition, a free market and a market in the national health service. The welfare state was created to reduce anxiety, to create a caring society rather than a dog eat dog society that the Conservatives want. Do you want a society that relies on the primitive notion of survival of the fittest or are you a little more advanced?

Hung, drawn and quartered

It’s only about 800 years since people convicted of treason were hung, drawn and quartered in Britain. The practice was quite acceptable then, not for women though, they were burnt alive tied to a stake. We feel horror now when we see people beheaded in other countries; we are a more civilised and sophisticated society now. In the future people will look back on the 21st century and think how primitive some people were and how cruel certain groups with their archaic beliefs were.

The landed gentry

In these modern times the landed gentry are actually those buy to let landlords who buy up run down or derelict properties, do them up a bit and rent them out to poor people on housing benefit. Not quite the landed gentry written about by Jane Austen are they? There is good news this week for these slum lords, it seems the Bank of England is considering lowering interest rates even further. They will get even cheaper mortgages to build their empires with. It won’t be a something pensioners with savings will celebrate, they will get just over 1% (less than inflation)  on their savings with a super-duper bond from national Savings and Investments. The Bank of England is also considering more ‘quantitative easing’ which is effectively printing money. I think they will probably wait until after the election, they don’t want people thinking the government debt is out of control, do they?

My Sunday ramble is very serious this week. For the past two weeks I’ve done a turkey Sunday lunch for my guest. It’s back to normal this week, with an afternoon out taking photographs. I think it’s going to be cloudy all day, but my camera can handle that! What do you have planned for Sunday? Please share your thoughts in the comments box. You can also follow me on Twitter.

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