Flu Watch Personal: 1

The Lib Dem sub agent for UK Ground Zero (Falkirk) of Mexican Swine flu, i.e. your good host has come down with the sniffles last night. However, I'm taking all the conflicting advise to heart.

For work I haf brought in tissues, I will be single using them (even though this is environmentally unsound), I waill continue to wash my hands regularly, and bin the tissues after each use.

I'm just as a risk assessor going to call facilites once they get in to enquire about some biohazzard tape to put around my desk's bin for the sake of the cleaners.

I would like to say that the lethargy I feel is not flu-like it is merely the normal level for a Wednesday morning after a few drinks et al the night before. And that the pain I'm feeling in my back is as a result of knocking myself on the bedside table last night.

Child Porn Compared to Drinking At Home!

"There is some suggestion that what you do in your own home doesn't really matter. That you can drink yourself to oblivion and it's your right. I think there are two arguments against that.

"First, we don't simply allow people to do anything they want. We don't allow people to watch internet porn relating to children or some other vile matters in their own home because it impacts on others. We don't allow people to consume recreational drugs in their own home because they want to and they say it won't do any harm.

"There are things that we decide as a society, and as a Government, as a Parliament, that are inappropriate. That's why we say that there has to be a speed limit, that there have to be restrictions on illicit substances, that there have to be constraints on pornography. These things, some argue, are harmless. No, they are not. And secondly what we have to say is that the abuse of alcohol by an individual in their own house does impact on others."

So says Kenny MacAskill, now nicknamed Kenny MacAskilljoy by Scotland on Sunday in defence of the SNP's latest policy initiatives regarding alcohol consumption. I thought the quote would have to be given in full and I just find it unbelievable that such far reaching comparisons were made. In this statement Mr MacAskill does appear to be lumping all home consumers of alcohol with child pornographers, illegal drug takes and speed fiends on our roads. While these three all do hold serious consequences either for the person involved or others drinking at home does not always affect others adversely.

So while Mr MacAskill does seem to pointing out the extremes of drinking at home and how it affects others surely this is covered under domestic violence legislation etc. The plans to raise costs, ages of purchasing from off licences are not going to affect these hard core drinkers he seems out to stop. They have a disease which needs treating, these actions aren't going to affect their ability or willingness to get hold of their daily does of alcohol. What all these plans does do is inconvenience the mild drinkers disproportionately. Don't label all at home drinkers along with child pornographers or shooting up drug addicts, that is overkill, using the same fear tactics that Labour seem so prone to push to when nobody else will agree with them.