i see the anti badger cull petition got 100,000 signatures in about 2 weeksOriginally Posted by Aqualung
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/38257
i see the anti badger cull petition got 100,000 signatures in about 2 weeks
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/38257
Last edited by hondo; 25-09-2012 at 07:40.
"Do I know where hell is? hell is in hello"
Yep and Branson has now got 174,000 for his carp train service, I think it tells you a lot about the British and what they value.
The time taken to get to the magic number certainly undermines the petition's credibility with politicians, I'm not holding my breath that we'll even get a debate but I'm going to badgermy MP to get it.
We have got the debate
Andrew Griffiths MP @agriffithsmp tweeted this afternoon,
"It is official. We have been granted a 3 hr debate on the floor of the House of Commons on scrapping the Beer Duty Escalator on 1st Nov. "
I wonder what effect that date has on CAMRA's mass lobby on 12/12/12?
I do know we won't get a lot of positive coverage on the BBC
I do hope that something positive comes from this although I am not holding my breath. What annoys me most is the line the supporters of the escalator come up with claiming that it will help cut down on binge drinking. This is total rubbish as so-called binge drinkers (ie, younger people who fall out of night clubs causing all sorts of grief) are not beer drinkers. they drink spirits or alco-pops (if they still exist).
If you feel that the BBC aren't giving any coverage to this why not complain? I complained about the Olympic news coverage ( especially in the London news ) earlier this year and did get fobbed off, but I knew I wasn't on a winning cause.
Wine, spirits and cider are also subject to an escalator but the method of applying the duty is different. The health lobby will point to falling sales (when and only when it suits their case) as proof that increasing prices reduces consumption. However there is no information breaking down the reduction by income/age group etc and also nobody really knows the extent of the consumption of smuggled, VAT fraud, counterfeit or home made alcohol.
The BBC has an obvious built in bias against drink but mainly beer. Wine of course presents them with a dilemma;
it's a lovely middle class drink that we at the BBC all enjoy, it's the only drink that goes with food and it doesn't do us any harm
against
we must join in the "Binge Britain" moral panic so the Daily Mail doesn't get upset and of course we can use those great telly pictures of drunk youngsters fighting and vomiting while we tut tut about "alcohol".
They seem to get round this dilemma by thinking wine isn't "alcohol", much in the way a lot of people think alcohol isn't a drug or maybe isn't "drugs". So as with the Olympics not a whole lot of point complaining.
I detect a cynicism almost equal to my own, and I thought I was the only one like that!!!
Cynicism but unfortunately justified.
"Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer."
-W.C.Fields
This is the point where cynicism and realism meet.
Indeed, almost every story they run about alcohol has the same stock photos of beer / someone drinking a pint.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-19715002
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-19490952
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-n...wales-18725195
Good research Quinno, and the last one is a joke. When have you heard of anyone under 18 drinking real ale?
I saw plenty of under age drinkers in an unnamed Northampton venue on Tuesday evening and like me they were drinking cheap shots of vodka...
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