A humungous piece of shit just dropped into my email in tray-Save me from myself!

If you want to see Rab then go here. I promise you, you’ll be hooked! Ok, it’s not the real Rab but it’s the closest you’ll get.

And believe me, the lettering was much larger than below.

KEY SEMINAR ON ONE OF THE MOST ACUTE PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES IN SCOTLAND AND ELSEWHERE IN THE UK

HOW CAN WE ALL MOST EFFECTIVELY TACKLE

ALCOHOL MISUSE?

· REDUCING THE PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC COSTS 

· LEARNING ACROSS BORDERS; MAKING PARTNERSHIPS WORK

· TAKING FORWARD THE SCOTTISH ALCOHOL BILL    

Tuesday 20 April,  2010

Royal OverSeas League,  Edinburgh

Contributors include    

· Alison Douglas,  Head of Alcohol Policy,  Scottish Government

· Prof Eileen Kaner,  Professor of Public Health Research,  University of Newcastle upon Tyne

· Dr Zul Mirza,  President, Emergency Medicine, Royal Society of Medicine

· Dr Peter Rice,  Consultant Psychiatrist,  Tayside Alcohol Problems Service

· Dr Alison Giles, Chief Executive, Our Life,  North West England

· Harry Garland,  Executive Director of Children and Community,  South Ayrshire Council

· Lorrain Hyland, ADAT Project Officer,  Lochar West

· Dr Lesley Graham, Lead on Offenders and Alcohol,  Scottish Government

· Barbara O'Donnell, Director of Services, Alcohol Focus Scotland

· Paddy Tomkins,  Recently HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland

· Senior Representative  : Police Service

Lets have a look at these philanthropic educationalists above, who are these people that have our unbiased interests at heart?

• Alison Douglas, Head of Alcohol Policy,  Scottish Government? Head of Alcohol Police Policy and reeks of QUANGO juice.

Alison Douglas, head of the alcohol policy team at the Scottish Government, also committed to introducing an extra levy — a "social responsibility fee" — for operators. But she said plans had been "widened" to include the off-trade.

Douglas said the aim is to include minimum pricing and the fee in a new Alcohol Bill by the end of the year.

She told the Westminister Health Forum debate today: "We should see an effect [of minimum pricing] within a year, like with the smoking ban. It will be bringing people on the verge of liver cirrhosis back from the brink."

• Prof Eileen Kaner,  Professor of Public Health Research,  University of Newcastle upon Tyne who will open her legs to the highest bidder, in this case The Department of Health…Come on Eileen, you’ve been quango’d.

Professor Eileen Kaner appointed as a trustee for the Alcohol Education and Research Council.

Eileen Kaner has recently been appointed as a trustee for the Alcohol Education and Research Council from 1 April 2007. This research council comes under the aegis of the Department of Health (a move from the Department of Culture Media and Sport) and Council members are appointed directly by the minister on the basis of a recommendation by the Appointment Commission.  The appointment was confirmed by Caroline Flint (Minister of State for Public Health)

Caroline Flint? Flint??? Where have I heard that name before? NO, not that CAROLINE FLINT? Surely not the Caroline Flint who was one of the architects of the smoking ban experiment? Well the smokers have now been well and truly stuffed so it’s time for them to turn their attention to you drinkers! Not so smug now, are you, my drinking, non-smoking buddies? But I digress.

 

• Dr Zul Mirza,  President, Emergency Medicine, Royal Society of Medicine

All NHS hospitals should appoint an alcohol liaison officer to assist patients in A&E come to terms with their drink problems, a senior emergency consultant has said.

Time spent in A&E after accidents and binge-drinking represents a “teachable moment” when drinkers can be persuaded to understand the damage they are doing to their health, said Dr Zul Mirza, president of the Royal Society of Medicine’s Emergency Medicine Section.

Dr Mirza will tell a society conference that the move could help reduce problem drinking and cut alcohol-related casualty admissions.

Now, as far as I can see, click on his name above, Dr Zul Mirza Is a caring Dr who cares about alcoholism and the alcoholic, the NHS and the people on the frontline ‘services’ front. At this moment in time I can see no self interest here.

• Dr Peter Rice,  Consultant Psychiatrist,  Tayside Alcohol Problems Service

Dr Peter Rice is is on the executive of SHAAP (Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems) who boldly proclaim:

Funding

SHAAP received start-up funding from the Scottish Government for three years. This funding covers core costs and an initial programme of work. SHAAP will be fundraising from other sources to continue its work in the future, and is currently looking at developing joint funding proposals with other organisations for specific projects to tackle alcohol-related harm in Scotland. SHAAP will not receive any funds from the alcohol industry.

Now, where have I heard these sentiments before? Ah yes, here and numerous other places like the UN and the EU, who are on a crusade against smoking and smokers, and now the drinkers.

• Dr Alison Giles, Chief Executive, Our Life,  North West England

Health campaign

"A unit price of 50p means £1.50 for a pint in the pub or £4.50 for a bottle of wine in the supermarket.

"Is this really too much to pay to save 3,393 lives per year, to cut crimes by 45,800 and save the country £1bn every year in alcohol-related costs?"

Chief Executive Dr Alison Giles said: "It cannot be a coincidence that we see rising alcohol harm in the North West on the one hand and pocket-money drinks prices on the other.

"We need a minimum price below which alcohol cannot be sold and a code of conduct for the off-trade to tackle pocket-money pricing by the supermarkets."

• Harry Garland,  Executive Director of Children and Community,  South Ayrshire Council

Seems like a nice guy who cares about the community and has no pecuniary interests in serving his area of expertise, unless you know different, of course.

• Lorrain Hyland, ADAT Project Officer,  Lochar West

Here’s her bio:

Biography:
Lorrain Hyland
Dumfries and Galloway Alcohol & Drug Action Team.
Lorrain has lived and worked in Scotland for over 14 years, starting out as a manager of her own business, and then qualifying with BII and managing public houses for Scottish and Newcastle, in Edinburgh city. Lorrain then moved to Dumfries & Galloway and began working within the health environment, initially with young people and then moved into wider issues with the local Health Improvement service for Dumfries and Galloway NHS. Lorrain has worked locally for ten years now and as part of her remit in Health Improvement she took on the role of Chairperson for the local drug and alcohol community forum. Through this role she led on numerous awareness raising events and became involved with the original regional alcohol service pilot project. This involved setting up Tier 1 services and local health education projects. The opportunity then arose for a secondment opportunity into the ADP, previosuly know as the ADAT to manage the roll out of the Integrated Alcohol Service across D&G. She did this for two years, before securing the post on a permanent basis in October 2008, where she now co-ordinates the Four Tier service for the region.

You decide.

Is she a good egg or does she leave a nasty “righteous” taste in your mouth, and I don’t mean a bad glass of Chardonnay.  You decide.

• Dr Lesley Graham, Lead on Offenders and Alcohol,  Scottish Government

I got so far through the list of these people  who purport to be concerned about our health and wellbeing when I saw this site which lists all those mentioned above and their bios, (I stopped at Dr Lesley, it was doing my head in reading their sanctimonious crap.) If you look through them you will see that they are on various committees and talk at many seminars about drinking and, especially now, minimum pricing, (if you want to know more about minimum pricing then you should read The Pub Cumurgeon he knows his stuff,) the new ‘must do’ for the control freaks of the righteous.

I can see many convergences between Tobacco Control quangos and the alcohol prohibitionists that it makes my head ache.

It’s been ninety years since the USA started the “noble experiment*” and, ninety years on they are still trying to re-invent their prohibitionist wheel, you just have to look at how far the smoking ban experiment has gone!

You have been warned! Give the prohibitionist dogs a bone and they will have you, limb by bloody limb.

I leave you with the rest of the email I received, it is over long and I don’t want to piss the reader off any more than I have to:

Issues Covered

· How do we most effectively change our relationship with alcohol?

· How distinctive are issues in Scotland from elsewhere in the UK and the world?

· How best can we learn across borders both in the UK and more widely?

· How should Scotland best follow through on the Framework for Action, meeting the various challenges?

· What are Government’s agenda and expectations in implementing the Alcohol Bill?

· However good national policies, how do we ensure effective local leadership, imagination and partnership?

· How will local government and partners meet the challenge?

· How best can we tackle alcohol-fuelled crime, violence and anti social behaviour?

· How best can the police work in partnership with other agencies?

· What is the impact of current and proposed legislation and adopting a genuine end-to-end approach on violence reduction?

· How can accident and emergency departments be venues for identifying need and offering advice on alcohol harm reduction?

· What are the types of patient attending A&E?

· How can we reduce A&E attendance and resources?

· How do we achieve the necessary culture change in attitudes to alcohol and alcohol-generated harm?

· What can we learn from the large-scale approach to winning hearts and minds in North West England and elsewhere?

· How best should we tackle the serious mental health issues associated with alcohol misuse?

· How do we get all agencies to recognise and tackle to challenges of co-morbidity?· How should we approach the cost of alcohol as an effective approach to reducing alcohol-related harm?

· What is NICE’s approach to tackling alcohol misuse by young people and those drinking harmful amounts in England?

· How best can we divert young people away from alcohol?

· What can we learn from the Pulse Programme and other initiatives?

· How do we achieve maximum effective inter-agency co-operation to tackle both alcohol and other drugs?

· How best can we tackle alcohol abuse by offenders in custody and the community?

· Where can we hope to be in ten years time?

How to Book

To see the full programme, speaker biographies, venue information and booking details click here.

There are discounts for voluntary and community organisations and for block bookings.

Please note

Any problems, please contact the office on 01422 845004 or email seminars@cppseminars.org.uk.

PS: Why the F**k does that bastard government calling itself Holyrood, have a picture of the Houses of Parliament? Are they not proud of their own den of iniquity?

*Prohibition of alcohol in the US was thus described and it is no accident that the smoking ban is classed by us, the anti-smoking ban movement, as The Smoking Ban Experiment because it is a form of social control, social control that dictatorships like Russia or China have often been accused of, go figure.

Please Lock me Away, I won’t stay in a world without love-Peter and Gordon:

Update: The spotlight was not put on Paddy Tomkins earlier as the recent HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland, who gave up his £173,000 a year day job on April the 13th 2009 for the reasons that: I have made this decision after careful consideration and discussions with family, friends and colleagues. It is a personal decision and based on a desire to seek fresh challenges.

£346,000 over two years doing what exactly? Nice work if you can get it, isn’t it?

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: "I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Tomkins for the considerable achievements which he has delivered since taking up the appointment in April 2007. He has re- energised the inspection regime and brought a fresh perspective to scrutiny of the Scottish police service.

"The move towards thematic inspections has proved to be both practical and beneficial for the service as a whole and for individual forces and I am grateful for the way in which Mr Tomkins has worked closely across the service to make the new regime such a success…[he…]

Re-energised the inspection regime MacArsekill?, he has moved towards thematic inspections MacArsekill?, and has”worked closely across the service to make the new regime such a success?” MacArsekill? Does the constant use of the word REGIME ring any bells readers?

For £346, 000 over two years, two bloody years, (it has been nearly three bloody fucking years since the smoking ban experiment came in and it seems to have gone in an instant,) and all you can say about this waste of taxpayers money is hyperbolic crap.  Where’s the reduction in crime? Where’s the magical figures that the UK government like to pull out of a hat like Paul Daniels on a very strong coffee, (well, he’s not a young man anymore and anything stronger than a waft of Redcar sea air would knock him sideways!) See Constantly Furious or Underdogs Bite Upwards for the blogosphere’s take on untrustworthy and useless targets.

My bloody heart bleeds for former Chief Inspector Tomkins, and you MacArsekill…not! Nice bloody job if you can get it.

 

Blogger Tags: Minimum pricing, alcohol prohibitionists, prohibition, Quangos, Rab C Nesbit, Control, Tobacco, Righteous bastards, can't think for ourselves, government wants you from the cradle to the grave literally.