There was a time when the Conservative Party supported the free market and, in particular, people often defined as 'middle class'; no more, it would seem.
Today's newspaper carries the news that the Government, a coalition of interfering do-gooders, is to launch its Alcohol Strategy next week. This is theoretically aimed at preventing the abuses perpetrated by the hordes of young yobs who rampage around our streets on Fridays and Saturdays, having loaded themselves up with cheap alcohol before venturing out and subsequently drinking more until they can no longer stand, they vomit and cause a genuine nuisance to everyone else around them. Some of them end up in hospital having made themselves so ill that it takes the skills of doctors to save their lives.
Few would argue that addressing this generally disgusting and anti-social behaviour is necessary and a good thing, but there are ways and means. It seems that the 'coalition of the incompetent' is to use a sledge hammer which will affect everyone who drinks, rather than hitting the problem itself. The chances must be that their actions will do little to resolve the issue but will do much to annoy a large section of the population.
The plan is, so I've read today, to introduce a minimum price for alcohol of 40 pence per unit and also to ban supermarkets from offering discount deals, specifically for bulk purchases of wine. None of this would, of course, affect Dave, Nick and their pals but it may well affect a very large number of very ordinary people who like a glass of wine with their meals. If I drank wine regularly, which I used to do, I would buy my supplies in bulk, perhaps 6 or 12 bottles at a time. Up to now, many supermarkets have offered discounts for such purchases but under the coalition's plans this would no longer be allowed. I have never gone rampaging around the streets or caused a public nuisance but I, and people like me, are to be hammered by this insane Government's inability to act rationally and by the squawkings of the fanatics in the 'Health Lobby'.
I'm more than capable of making my own decisions about such matters - why should I be penalised because of the behaviour of ignorant yobs barely a third of my age ? If the imbeciles in power really want to deal with this issue, why don't they take direct action against the morons who set out at the weekend to get drunk and create mayhem ? Why aren't these people targeted by the police, arrested, charged and punished ? Why aren't those who end up in their local casualty department charged for their treatments, in the same way that injured motorists and their passengers can be ? Why aren't the bars and clubs which cater for these people, ignoring the laws governing the sale of alcohol to those who are already drunk and equally ignoring the sale and use of an assortment of illegal drugs, closed down ?
David Cameron may be a member of the Conservative Party but he is no Tory. He is a middle of the road liberal who believes that he has a duty to interfere in the lives of the rest of us, telling us what to do at every turn because he and his friends know best. However, he doesn't have the strength of character to actually tell the truth about such things and finds it much easier to attack a broad sweep of the population than to target issues directly. In doing so, he hopes to hide his actions and dilute the response; in fact he simply makes an even greater part of the population fed up with him.
Cameron is a disaster. The Coalition is a mess. The sooner we get rid of it the better, though it looks as though we will have to wait until 2015 unless the real Liberals decide to walk out sooner. Let's hope they do.
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