It's enough to drive you to drink!

We British are a bit soft when it comes to charities. But many charities are no longer cheerful bands of volunteers but are highly organised pressure groups, often funded by the government. What’s more, journalists rarely investigate reports or press releases from charities because they’re seen as good trustworthy guys.

Charities have changed over the years and now often have expensive overheads like posh offices, computers, photocopiers, lots of staff and executives on high salaries. It’s imperative they carry on raising money to keep their salaries coming in.

I was reminded of this today when I read a report from the British Liver Trust claiming supermarket meal deals which included wine were bad news. I decided to do a bit of research and after much googling I tracked down a copy of the BLT’s accounts, artfully hidden deep in the trust’s website. It appears that the BLT will be spending far more than it earns next year. So what do you do if you’re a charity faced with cash shortfall? Simple… you write a sensationalist report that you hope will attract a juicy research grant or some government dosh.

The report claims that the middle classes are the real alcoholics and most likely to develop liver damage. The BLT claims supermarket meal deals are 'fuelling middle-class alcohol abuse'.

That’s right, some blockhead at the BLT thinks the middle class couples eat Marks & Spencer Dine In For A Tenner meals every night, so that means they’re drinking half a bottle of wine every night. The General Household Survey says that middle class people have a drink, on average, five nights a week. On the other hand, the poor working classes only drink two nights a week.

What these morons can’t work out from that bit of research is that middle class people might just come home from work and have a small sherry or a gin and tonic before dinner. It doesn’t mention that the twice weekly working classes may be young binge drinker going out on Friday and Saturday nights and drinking themselves into oblivion. Perhaps the reason they don't drink on the other five nights of the week is that they've already spent all their money on 100 vodka shots at the weekend.

Sarah Matthews of the BLT claims that selling wine as part of meal deals helps to ‘normalise excessive drinking’. What a daft cow. Anyone who uses the word ‘normalise’ must be a halfwit. Of course it’s normal to drink wine with a meal. In continental Europe people wouldn’t dream of having a cup of tea or a carrot juice with a decent meal.

She also drones on: ‘These meal deals are prominently advertised and make regular drinking seem a perfectly normal and acceptable habit. They are totally wrong.’ I guess they're wrong because she says so? It’s the BLT’s considered opinion that we must have at least two alcohol-free days a week. In that case we better make sure we only take communion five days a week. I bet Ms Matthews is a right barrel of laughs. Remind me to cross her off my Christmas party guest list.

But it’s not only the BLT having a go at the middle classes. The charity Alcohol Concern (a government-funded fake charity) says, ‘People should be encouraged to moderate their intake. Half a bottle a day is too much. These deals look like great value but there should always be a healthy alternative offered to wine.’

I don’t think it will stop there. As soon as these killjoys get their way on banning meal deals with wine, they’ll be having a go at meat. They’ll insist there’s an alternative to meat on offer, something as bland and unseasoned as possible. It’s this sort of interfering, do-gooding puritan attitude that’s making life in Britain unbearable. These complete arses, subsidised by taxpayers, make my blood boil.

In fact, it’s enough to drive anyone to drink.