Curmudgeon News - November 2000

• British "Intolerant of Children"
• Go-ped Drink-Rider Faces Ban
• One in Twenty "Hooked on Drink"
• Drink-Drive Deaths Continue to Fall
• Rail Restrictions Increase Risk
• Vegetables Fail to Cut Cancer Risk
• M60 Opens on Day of Chaos
• Brown to Scrap Betting Tax
• Dome Admits Anti-Car Policy a Failure
• Blair Intervenes in New Year Hours Row

Complete News Index

• British "Intolerant of Children"

  Britain is one of the least family-friendly countries in Europe, according to a report from the National Family and Parenting Institute. It reveals that parents believe British people are not tolerant of children and that they feel uncomfortable when they go out socially as a family. Mary MacLeod, chief executive of the NFPI, said "Many parents talk of reluctance to accept children in restaurants and pubs. Most of all parents seem to feel judged." As far as I can see, there are now huge numbers of pubs and restaurants that go out of their way to attract families. Have they never heard of a Wacky Warehouse or a Charlie Chalk's Fun Factory? In some areas it's becoming difficult to find a pub that doesn't. What annoys me about these family campaigners is that they are not prepared to accept even a few pubs allowing adult drinkers to enjoy their pint in peace without having to put up with howling, moaning brats.

• Go-ped Drink-Rider Faces Ban

  Oldham businessman David Murray faced a driving ban after being found to be almost three times over the drink-drive limit after police breathalysed him on his way home from the pub on his Go-ped scooter. The father of two admitted he had a few drinks but said the 15-mph scooter was nothing more than a toy and asked for the case to be thrown out. But he has received a blow after the High Court ruled in a test case that Go-peds are motor vehicles in the eyes of the law and should be treated in the same way as motorcycles, cars and lorries. Surely there is a place for a fairly slow-moving powered vehicle that is subject to the same rules on drink-driving as pedal cyclists rather than motorists, but it would be much safer with four wheels rather than two.

• One in Twenty "Hooked on Drink"

  Anti-drink pressure group Alcohol Concern has claimed that as many as 5% of adults in the UK are alcoholics. Figures presented at a conference in London indicated that one in 20 people in the UK were addicted to drink, compared with one in 45 with a physical dependence on prescription painkillers or illegal narcotics. According to Alcohol Concern, alcohol is associated with 65% of all suicide attempts, 76,000 facial injuries, and 23% of child neglect calls each year. I get thoroughly sick of all this - yes, a small proportion of people do have serious problems with alcohol, but Alcohol Concern are basically just a bunch of health Nazis whose real agenda is to restrict the rights of ordinary, moderate drinkers to consume alcoholic drinks and visit pubs. And how do they define "alcoholic" - someone who occasionally drinks more than 14 pints a week and sometimes goes seven days without an alcohol-free day?

• Drink-Drive Deaths Continue to Fall

  According to the latest government figures, road deaths attributed to excess alcohol fell from 460 in 1998 to 420 in 1999. This marks a dramatic decline from well over 1,200 in the late70s. The number of people arrested for driving whilst over the limit has nearly halved in a decade. However, ministers are determined to keep the pressure on so the death toll is reduced even further. Another dramatic - and welcome - decline. But why is the government still determined to portray drink-driving as public enemy #1, when all the facts suggest otherwise? Surely they should recognise that it has now become a problem pretty much entirely confined to an unrecalcitrant hard core, and adapt their tactics accordingly.

• Rail Restrictions Increase Risk

  Britain's rail passengers may have been put at increased risk by safety measures introduced to protect them in the aftermath of the Hatfield crash. Fears that the widespread speed restrictions and timetable changes on the rail network increased the risk of drivers inadvertently going through red lights were set out in a confidential Railtrack document. Drivers are struggling to understand a list of special directions on speed changes which runs to 16 pages and has prompted concerns that it could lead to confusion and error. Entirely believable - and this suggests that the numerous speed limit reductions on the roads applied by local authorities over the past ten years may have much the same effect.

• Vegetables Fail to Cut Cancer Risk

  Research led by Dr Karin Michels of Harvard University has found that those who eat more fruit and vegetables do not have a lower risk of bowel cancer. The same researchers recently concluded that fibre also has no protective effect against the disease. Dr Michels said she feared sending out the wrong message to people, but had no choice but to report her findings, which were published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. More and more studies are undermining the central tenets of health fascism by showing that the link between diet and health is far less straightforward than was once supposed. Of course the problem with so much research in this field is that the researchers are not motivated by a genuine spirit of scientific inquiry, but rather, as Dr Michels' comments bear out, are trying to find evidence to back up a particular agenda.

• M60 Opens on Day of Chaos

  The final link in Greater Manchester's M60 orbital motorway opened on Monday 30 October, as freak weather brought chaos to the region. Hailstorms and blizzards greeted the opening of the missing link from Denton to Middleton, seven years after the project began. Junior transport minister Keith Hill had been due to carry out the opening, but he was stranded at Gatwick Airport by the weather. The opening duties were instead carried out by Denton and Reddish MP Andrew Bennett. Up to 180,000 vehicles a day are expected to use the ring-road, which is hoped to spark an economic renaissance in east Manchester. As Bennett is President of the Ramblers' Association and no friend of road-building, that duty must have stuck in his craw a bit. But it's good news for anyone concerned about improving transport links and the local economy - and the new road's popularity will quickly be shown by the level of traffic using it. No doubt the Greens will accuse it of "generating traffic", but in reality that's indistinguishable from "generating prosperity".

• Brown to Scrap Betting Tax

  Chancellor Gordon Brown has announced that the tax on domestic betting, currently 9p in the pound, is to be "modernised" and effectively scrapped in its current form. This is in reponse to the growth of tax-free offshore betting through the Internet, which is taking an increasing amount of business away from high street bookmarkers. Interesting to see Brown slashing one "sin tax" because it is effectively driving the business overseas and ruining the domestic industry. So how long will it be before he goes the same way with tobacco and alcohol taxes? The principle may be much the same, but don't hold your breath.

• Dome Admits Anti-Car Policy a Failure

  In a surprise policy U-turn, the Millennium Dome has been declared a "Car-Friendly Zone" for November. Since its opening, car drivers have been prevented from parking anywhere near the Dome, instead being forced to park miles away, and be shuttled in by bus, or alternatively travel by train, which many families found prohibitively expensive. The lack of parking for visitors has often been cited as a reason for the Dome's disappointing attendance figures, and this in effect is an admission that is true. Surely restricted parking is also a reason for low attendances at other high-profile museums on city centre sites such as the Royal Armouries in Leeds. And this suggests it is high time that the government abandoned planning constraints that prevent any new commercial developments having sufficient parking.

• Blair Intervenes in New Year Hours Row

  Tony Blair is reported to be considering a personal intervention to rush through an amendment to licensing laws which would allow publicans to open for 36 hours as they did for the Millennium last year. Fury erupted when it was revealed that a bureaucratic oversight has ended the prospects of pubs and clubs being allowed the longer opening hours over the New Year. Instead a "patchwork quilt" of opening times will operate across England and Wales with some bars closing at 10.30pm on New Year's Eve and others remaining open until 4am on January 1, due to inconsistency between licensing magistrates. I totally fail to see what the problem is. New Year opening hours were always decided by local benches before, and nobody seemed to complain too much. And no Licensing Bench is going to force local pubs to shut before midnight.

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