Measure for Measure

Of government the properties to unfold

Would seem in me t'affect speech and discourse

And so starts the play, but not on a Shakespearean stage, no not there I say. This was set on the greatest stage of all in the mother of all Parliaments.

With around 20 bars in the Houses of Parliament, none requiring a licence I may add, it is of little surprise that we will get the odd bar brawl. Churchill after all was once famously slated for being drunk in the Commons by a female member, to which his reply was allegedly 'Madame in the morning I shall be sober, you however will still be ugly!"

Well Winston and I may have been born on the same day and sometimes I have the ability to say the odd great one-liner however his drinking habits were more akin to those of my father. Unfortunately though many of our MP's have drinking habits akin to Winston's. Add this to all the journalists, who of course are known for their sobriety, and the lobbyists attempting to add undue influence and we have potentially an explosive mix greater than that of a Molotov cocktail.

And here lies the problem.

Fairly soon we are going to see the launch of the Government's new alcohol strategy yet these sad individuals cannot keep their own house in order so how can they possibly lecture us?

With power comes responsibility and I seriously doubt that the circus that surrounds the Houses of Parliament get anywhere near to understanding that. Well one politician did at least. Knowledge is Power and so speaketh Karl Marx. And yes I have a take on this too.

The knowledge of alcohol and it's properties allows us to have power over it and removes power from the booze and those who would drown us in it!

Education is fundamentally the only way that we can hope to change the society in which we live. That education has to start with those that would be King. Government cannot seriously hope to change our nations relationship with alcohol if they do not even understand their own relationship with the brewers, distillers and lobbyists who work for them. 

In this sixth national alcohol free week I ask why is one drunken MP getting more headlines than an alternate way of enjoying life.

So I say to our MP's

I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave

To have free speech with you; and it concerns me

To look into the bottom of my place,

A power I have, but of what strength and nature

I am not yet instructed,

Educate through inspiration, show the world there are alternatives and show the world that responsibility is within you and therefor us all