When the current UK government says it really, really is going to do something the odds are it won’t. First it stopped winter fuel payments for pensioners then it changed its mind (for most anyway, although they still haven’t got the money), then it ruled out a national inquiry into grooming gangs and then it didn’t, we’re apparently going to have one. Right now it’s backtracking furiously on plans to save a supposed £5bn by cutting benefits to disabled people.
So when it says, as it’s currently doing, that it has no plans to ban alcohol advertising as suggested in a draft NHS plan reported on Sky News, should adland be relieved or not? Will it change its mind about this too? And which way?
There’s no doubt that booze is a health hazard for some but, then again, so is crossing the road and that hasn’t been banned yet (although many London councils and the mayor are doing their damndest to ban cars or reduce their speed to even lower than the 4mph averaged in parts of the capital.) There are so many restrictions on alcohol advertising anyway (some voluntary) that it’s hard to think of a campaign that actually encourages you to get pissed.
Apparently 65% of people in the UK think there should be more restrictions on such advertising and opinion polling seems to be Labour’s only policy guiding light. Many senior figures in the NHS (which currently gobbles up the same amount of money as the GDP of Portugal) would be happy to see such a ban. Just as they’d be happy not to have any patients, a doctor’s dream.
But the stuff is quite popular, not that that seems to count for much with our legislators. As things stand it’s already being priced out of many people’s reach with £7 pints and restaurants charging £60 a bottle for pretty average wine (they’d say it’s a response to inflation, partly caused by government measures.)
Like much else in Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’ Britain, this looks like another unholy mess is brewing.
