Not very NICE

Whichever moron thought up the acronym of NICE (which stands for the National Institute for Clinical Excellence) really is trying their best to be at the top of my list of people to be executed when I finally achieve power as the UK’s supreme leader.

If ever there were an oxymoron, it’s NICE. This Croydon-based office block houses a bunch of cheap-suited weasels who preside over the rest of us, deciding who gets a life-saving cancer drugs or who will be refused treatment that may extend someone’s life. I suppose if you’re a sad little underachieving public servant, there must be a certain frisson of excitement at being able to play God and decide who shall live and who shall die. Perhaps the Americans had NICE in mind when they were jabbering on about NHS ‘death panels’.

Anyway, this miserable bunch of creeps has decided (like all civil servants) that they’d like to extend their empire a bit further. The cheeky bastards are now suggesting that the public should be limited on the amount of alcohol they can import from the rest of the Europe. These six-fingered inbreds would like to end the culture of the booze cruise as they think it’s bad for our health.

They want minimum prices and import restrictions placed on alcohol. In their teetotal opinion, people will drink less if alcohol is made more expensive. Hello, you morons! Would you like to turn your swivel-eyed gaze northwards for a moment and take a look at Norway, Sweden and Finland. Each of these countries believes in horrendously expensive alcohol and yet your average Nordic spends most weekends in a catatonic state, no doubt in a desperate attempt to forget the stultifying misery of living in a stultifying nanny state.

I suppose the nits at NICE are worried that we’re all drinking more than the number of recommended units of alcohol endorsed by the government and enjoying ourselves. Interestingly, those recommended units were figures plucked from the air by a bunch of doctors who had no idea what safe limits were but who felt compelled to set the bar low in case they were criticised for being too liberal. Try going to a party of medics and see how closely they observe the recommended units. I’ve never seen a profession more drink sodden than those who preach sobriety to the rest of us.

Well, the good news is that the NICE nannies can’t do a damn thing about limiting how much booze we can bring in from Europe. It’s part of the EU’s free trade policy and is about the only positive thing the EU has ever done for the rest of us. The Government hates it because it means people can enjoy a drink without being taxed to death so that ministers can piss away our taxes on really useful stuff like ID cards and Trident missiles.

The NICE alcohol guidelines are currently out for public consultation until November 10th. I’m sure if we all tell them we don’t want them poking their puritan noses into our personal lives they’ll take note and withdraw their proposals.

Of course they will. And I’m the tooth fairy!