Cameron loses the plot over tobacco and alcohol reforms

It matters not a jot that Silverspoon Cameron says it was his decision alone, and not pressure from lobbyists, to abandon plain packaging for tobacco. The simple truth is that the prime minister has taken leave of his senses on this, as well as now not having a 45p per unit minimum price for alcohol. So topsy-turvy, in fact, that Silverspoon has completely undermined his lip-service to improving health. But the public aren't daft. They know that the easy cash cows for any government are upping taxes on cigarettes and booze. Would they really want to lose billions by sobering up and de-toxing the nation, even though the equivalent is handed out in wasted foreign aid? Meanwhile, commercial lobbying remains unscrupulously big business, as does party fund-raising (e.g. donor dinners at Downing Street). At present, 80% of commercial pressure groups are unregulated. Deep down, the government doesn't wish to offend its paymasters. Hence a token attempt to compile a register, produced from a hat the day before MPs took off for the summer break, and now destined for a rushed and unprepared second reading on September 3, the day parliament reconvenes Meanwhile, locally, better health would be served by limiting the number of deregulated empty buses zooming around town, especially in the wake of the latest abundantly obvious medical survey from Denmark, noting that traffic fumes raise lung cancer risk. Good riddance to the Liverpool Care Pathway It is a medically calculated way of dying, which to its eternal shame, was emblazoned with the name of our city. The Liverpool Care Pathway – sounds like a nice walk in the woods – allows supposedly dying patients to be starved of food and drink until they really do expire. The procedure is meant to require consent, but one report claims that more than 2,500 families were unaware that their loved ones had been assigned to the LCP by medics. Altogether, more than 130,000 patients a year are affected, giving a 25% chance that we will meet our end in this way. But there is a difference between being terminally ill and actually dying. The case is quoted of a cancer patient who had suffered a heart attack being put on the LCP and having all tubes and drips removed. But once his horrified relatives insisted he was nourished and treated, he lived for another month. We have been lessened, not ennobled, by trying to manage death to order. And once directives are sidelined, the subject stalks us by another less palliative name – euthanasia. So good news that the LCP is to go. But why should that take up to 12 months? A tomb with a view – and a £1m price-tag Richard III never enjoyed a good press. But now the quintessential English baddie, unearthed in a Leicester car park, is to be buried in what the city's Dean, David Monteith, describes as a “wonderful space” in the cathedral. And at as wonderful price – a whacking £1m. Surely money better spent on a soup kitchen for the poor. Ulster still shows its tribal underbelly The loyalist rioting in Belfast following the banning of a controversial Orange march was unforgivable, and evidence of just how entrenched this tribal approach to public life in Northern Ireland remains. Police faced a barrage of petrol bombs, fireworks, bottles, sticks and stones. Thirty-two officers were injured, including two from the record 1,000 drafted in from England, Wales and Scotland. In total, 4,000 police were needed to cope with security. Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson is right in insisting that any 'overflow' activity to our own city streets during Irish-inspired marches of any political colour, will not be tolerated. It only takes one to spoil things for everyone else As is so often the case, it only takes a single person to spoil enjoyment for everyone else. One of the benefits of the lovely weather was a coach trip to Ullswater, followed by a lake sail, plus a drive over Kirkstone Pass to Ambleside. All perfect, apart from the constant decibel-shattering nattering of an individual passenger, who was meant to be talking to his companion, but ended up driving everyone else on board to distraction. In flat-vowelled nasal Manc tones, he gave everyone the benefit of his supposed knowledge of geography and traffic flow. In the end, we were all left sucking through our teeth to prevent an uprising. Drivers and couriers should be equipped (and prepared) to deal with such incidents. Otherwise it just detracts from future custom. Alan Whicker: many impersonators, few equals The death of Alan Whicker is an enormous loss to broadcasting and television in particular. He had many impersonators but very few equals. Not least was the attractiveness of his voice: an intelligent, pleasantly modulating, tone – not to be confused with some of the eccentric excesses of his latter-day colleagues. Nobody mention the whimpering and whining of Robert Peston. Ever heard of contraception? The disgruntled faces of Gavin and Maggie Flisher, gaping out of newspaper pages with their six children in an attempt to drum up sympathy for being forced to live in a one-bedroom flat by their local council, had the opposite effect. The mother was described as “super-fertile” - the sort of language normally reserved for auctions of farm stock. But a simpler solution comes to mind. It's called contraception. Source: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/lifestyle/lifestyle-opinion/joe-riley-cameron-loses-plot-5170333