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Campaign to bar Darling from every UK pub



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Published Date: 25 March 2008
AN internet campaign to get Alistair Darling banned from every pub in the UK has been inspired by a bar in the Capital.
Last week, the News revealed that Utopia on Easter Road had put up a poster barring the Chancellor after his 4p per pint tax increase in the Budget.

The report prompted an Edinburgh-based blog, Musings of a Reactionary Snob, to call for the ban to be made nationwide.

The campaign has 110 supporters on its Facebook site, and pubs in Bolton, Lewes and Oxfordshire have followed Utopia.

Several posters have been designed – including one depicting the Edinburgh South MP as a Simpson's character in Moe's Tavern. The text says: "Finally Alistair Darling finds a pub he is not barred from."

The Reactionary Snob blogger, who describes himself as a 53-year-old advocate, says: "Alistair Darling has been barred from a pub in Leith because of the taxes he's just stuck on the good stuff. However, he is hardly ever going to be down in Leith on the sauce.

"I therefore implore all bloggers to petition their locals – let's get Darling banned from pubs up and down the land!"


The full article contains 201 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 25 March 2008 2:27 PM
  • Source: Edinburgh Evening News
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

Alternative (High Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 25/03/2008 12:03:04
All labour MPs and MSPs should be barred from pubs, shops, off-licences and petrol stations.

Maybe then they would get the message that their money-grabbing taxes are not wanted.
2

Tookie,

Compton 25/03/2008 12:22:44
Wow - 100 supporters! On Facebook!! What a campaign.
3

CB,

Somewhere in the EU 25/03/2008 12:30:22
Utopia is on Easter Road, not Leith Walk. Not a bad pub, but frankly I can't see him dropping in there anyhow...
4

Shug the Dug,

Edinburgh 25/03/2008 12:36:27
The vast support gathered by this campaign in such a short time must have Mr Darling quivering in his boots! I have already taken to 'Alistair-spotting' around Leith Walk and Easter Road waiting for my first glimpse of our illustrious Chancellor tearfully pleading for entry into the Utopia and others where hitherto he has been such a stalwart regular!!!
5

,

25/03/2008 12:57:55
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason:
6

Cramondo,

Edinburgh 25/03/2008 13:14:30
#6 Well put. I know the News is often short of good material but an empty space would be more interesting than this "story".

Maybe there is a story here, but it would be:

are advocates allowed to be reactionary snobs?
7

Declan,

Glasgow 25/03/2008 13:30:56
Oh god, please lets not give this campaign widespread coverage. What an embarrassment to have it initiated in Scotland!
8

Franck,

25/03/2008 13:41:20
Can we ban him from the greenways too? along with that plonker David Begg
9

Jenny MacArthur,

25/03/2008 13:43:55
Daft publicity stunt.
10

The Chief,

An angry place 25/03/2008 13:44:20
See that's the problem with this country. No one is willing to stand up and be counted. I don't believe this is about getting him barred from pubs, it's about protesting. I must admit it's a weak protest but that seems to be the best we can do in this country, and that's the problem. Take fuel tax for instance, it is tough on hauliers and those living in rural areas. If this was happing in France people would be mass protesting blocking the channel tunnel etc. Here a few people try to protest and people come on here and slate it. If more of us actually had the metal to show discontent maybe we wouldn't get hosed on ever budget.
11

,

25/03/2008 13:46:01
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason:
12

Mick O' ,

Andersons Bar 25/03/2008 13:54:30
With his expenses he might just buy his own pub!!
I cannot imagine he will lose any sleep over this. When he was an Edinburgh Cooncillor, he wisnae one for pub sessions with his working class comrades!!
To busy trying to become an M.P. Trust me, I was there!!
13

hassan i sabbah,

edinburgh 25/03/2008 14:29:41
Who mentioned sodomy,jimmy?done something whilst drunk that ye regret mibbe?
14

Arnie,

25/03/2008 14:48:03
I actually voted for the muppet, I think this is a good example of why you should never vote.
15

Duncan in Edinburgh,

25/03/2008 14:54:18
#12 Poor you. What is it that you are so scared of?
16

Incandescent,

25/03/2008 15:09:51
#10 Jenny

SHH!
17

Voice of reason,

EDINBURGH 25/03/2008 15:42:16
Better to have a campaign to make britain a labour-free zone . Darling is just a fall guy and a decent man , one of the few in this dreadful Govt .
18

blackley,

Edinburgh 25/03/2008 15:58:34
In the 80s Mr Darling was no stranger to the Easter Road terraces and presumably to the pubs of Easter Road too although that was before they had daft names like Utopia.
19

Toque,

Brighton 25/03/2008 16:10:15
It's an incredibly good campaign because it allows people to show their displeasure in a humourous way.

27 pubs a week are closing down across the UK, and these tax-rises, in conjunction with rising industry costs, are going to increase that rate of closure, signalling the death of many a community pub.

"The Chancellor has failed to recognise that well-run community pubs are the solution to Britain’s binge drinking problems. This budget will do nothing to stop binge drinking, but it will lead to pub closures on a huge scale, widen the gap between supermarket and pub prices and encourage smuggling and cross-border shopping. It’s a great big nail whacked ruthlessly into the coffin of the British pub." - Mike Benner, Chief Executive of CAMRA.

Amen to that.
20

Toque,

Brighton 25/03/2008 16:29:22
Not here it's not, it's village pubs that are shutting - either given over to residential housing or turned into a more profitable restaurant.

The badly run town centre ones tend to shut down and re-open as a Wetherspoons or Slug and Lettuce or some other god-awful vertical drinking saloon.

Nevermind, there's always Tescos.
21

A Friend of Fernando Poo,

Newington 25/03/2008 16:40:52
I was over in Utah last week. The pubs there are all restaurants too because of a requirement that you have to buy food in order to buy drink (they sell beer, but not all sell spirits because that requires a special licence). Obviously everyone has to be seated by a waitress in order to eat. Some of them had entertainment such as a band.

It seemed to me that it worked quite well. No arguments about seats because the waitresses are in charge of seating. No arguments queueing at the bar because the waitresses fetch the beer. Fewer drunk folks because it's hard to get drunk on beer alone, especially after a meal. It's also hard to throw a punch from a sitting position. Every bar had a good choice of locally brewed beers and one place had a list of over 100 imported beers.

The atmosphere was generally jovial and pleasant without any of the "keep a beady eye out for neds" culture many pubs have here. These Mormon wallahs could teach us a lot about civilising Scottish drinking.
22

Duncan in Edinburgh,

25/03/2008 17:22:43
#23 Well in Edinburgh it's been the rubbish pubs that have been closing, the ones that were going bust anyway and waiting for an excuse.

The bottom line is that we have far too many pubs for the good of our health. Lots more need to shut down as a result of a drop-off of demand. And wouldn't it be great to be able to shut down A&E departments because of lack of demand, if people stopped getting so drunk that they hurt either themselves or others?
23

Paul Voltiare,

25/03/2008 18:09:30
#1, that's an honest, fair assessment on yourself.
24

Toast,

25/03/2008 18:22:14
#19 Darling may be a "decent guy" but he is a crap politician,he has held almost every post in the cabinet and been incompetent at them all,his only talent is "*rse licking"
25

Disgrunted Ebardonian,

Edinburgh 25/03/2008 18:54:43
#2 Have you ever seen ANY MP's in the areas that you have mentioned I very much doubt it they have an expence sheet that is open ended and you and all the other happy tax payers are funding it.
26

roberto,

25/03/2008 19:09:25
can i ask if the staff from utopia can bar me as well
27

Julian,

EDINBURGH 25/03/2008 22:13:15
cb # 3,

"Utopia is on Easter Road"

Thanks for that information...just in case I couldn't be bothered reading the article;-)
28

Julian,

EDINBURGH 25/03/2008 22:19:33
Duncan in Edinburgh,

With your attitude, you might as well go the whole hog and call for a ban on alcohol.

Mario,

I think you know from these forums that we Scots are good at complaining about pretty much everything.
29

CB,

Somewhere in the EU 25/03/2008 23:44:05
No. 30 Julian:

It seems the article has been updated since I posted my comment. It originally stated that Utopia was on Leith Walk. Clearly the EN sub-eds are reading the comments ;)
30

CB,

Somewhere in the EU 25/03/2008 23:46:12
Indeed if you look at the foot of the article, it reads "Last Updated: 25 March 2008 2:27 PM", a full 2 hours after my comment.

Case closed.
31

Julian,

EDINBURGH 26/03/2008 00:50:13
CB,

Without conclusive evidence, I'll just have to give you the benefit of the doubt on this one.
32

Neanderthal75,

Rocky Mountains USA 26/03/2008 03:54:17
Hello Duncan and Cramondo,

RE your #'s 6&7

I just love you marxist types: you completely ignore personal responsibility in the face of overwhelming evidence!

You two loons don't want to penalize the minority abusing the right, you want to penalize the MAJORITY who are NOT abusing the right!

Yeah, now that makes great sense.

Ban that Bureaucratic Dweeb from every Pub in Great Britain, ban him from any place which sells beer, wine, and booze, and make sure to tell the Twit WHY he's been banned!

How about you two stop targeting Innocent People and start targeting the GUILTY?

My, what a wonderful concept: making individuals responsible for their own actions, instead of blaming responsible people for the reckless actions of others!

What will people think of next?

Cheers from the Rockies
33

Duncan in Edinburgh,

26/03/2008 08:16:52
#35 I do love the range of epithets I get here. I've been called a Nazi, a Tory, a communist and a Marxist. Oh well, at least no-one's ever called me a Lib Dem.

Firstly, you clearly didn't understand my point, which was that since every chancellor in living memory has applied duties to alcohol, there is no logic to starting this action against Darling, whose increases are lower than most.

But second, and more importantly, I completely agree that individuals should be responsible for their own actions. Explain to me precisely how you are going to hold drunks responsible for the damage they do to their own lives, their families and their communities.

I'm not talking about punishing criminal behaviour - we have an imperfect system for that already. I'm talking about the men who leave work, go to the pub, roll home out of their skulls and treat their families like dirt. I'm talking about the suffering of tens of thousands of children growing up in homes where cheap alcohol is abused on a daily basis - children who often grow up to abuse alcohol themselves.

How do you propose we make these people responsible for their own actions? How will you reduce this dreadful harm that is being done? What is your great plan?
34

Neanderthal75,

Rocky Mountains USA 26/03/2008 10:57:30
Hello again Duncan,

Firstly, allow me to point out that I labelled you a 'marxist' because that is the baseline of what I believed your argument to have been. Now that you've changed it somewhat, I'll say that you're more a Social Progressive/Liberal than a Marxist; but STILL wanting to penalize the law abiding majority for the 'crimes' of the pseudo-unlawful minority.

What you beef is, if I read you correctly this time, is that you want to solve the problems arising from people making minor poor decisions to major poor decisions, and thereby alleviate the suffering which those poor decisions cause (either directly or indirectly, actively or passively as it were).

Sorry my dear fellow, though you have splendid intentions, you're out of luck: human nature has NOT changed in at least 250,000 YEARS and given the overwhelming evidence at hand, it won't be changing anytime soon, regardless of how much you raise the prices.

Raising prices will have just the OPPOSITE effect you desire: those abusing their personal/familial/societal responsibilities, will simply provide LESS food on the table, LESS petrol in the car (if they have one), FEWER public transport passes/fares, less heat/electricity/water in the home.....in short, he/she will take whatever money they need to keep buying booze from the 'family budget'.

All you and the fine Minister will have done is increase the misery factor, NOT lower it!

How do I know? I'm one of those thousands of which you speak, who survived the depredations of the adults around me when I was a kid: people were too busy having 'fun' or too self involved, to remember that a little boy actually needed food, water, clothing, heat, and shelter.

I was so hungry at one point, that when I was just tall enough to barely reach the edge of the kitchen countertop at my 'Aunt's house, I spied a familiar bottle perched at the edge: a small Coke-a-Cola bottle. I was 3 not quite 4, and just managed to use my fingertips to get the bottl
35

Neanderthal75,

Rocky Mountains USA 26/03/2008 10:58:21
Hello again Duncan CONT,

I was so hungry at one point, that when I was just tall enough to barely reach the edge of the kitchen countertop at my 'Aunt's house, I spied a familiar bottle perched at the edge: a small Coke-a-Cola bottle. I was 3 not quite 4, and just managed to use my fingertips to get the bottle off the counter top.

I knew that similar bottles from which I had drank contained a sweet, delightful liquid that made my tummy happy. I got it off grabbed it tightly and up ended the bottle-and prompty drank what was about a quarter to half inch of Purex Bleach in the bottom of the bottle.

I survived the event, as is evidenced by my writing this post. I was without food more often than not, and when placed in the 'tender care' of my mother's mother (Nana) when I was 5, she let me fall asleep out in the hot sun and I nearly died from heat stroke; the doctor pulled strips of blistered skin off of my back, that were as long as my back (a rather incompetent fellow thinking back on it. The quality of doctors in poor neighborhoods wasn't always peachy.).

Aged 6 I was pushed into a bog by an 'Aunt's' bright little darling, and had he not decided that he would end up in a world of trouble, my body would have found the deeper reaches of the bog.

There are more such incidents, but allow me to suffice by saying that NONE of what happened to me could have realistically been prevented, given the mental/emotional state of the adults in charge of me.

The sad fact is that NOTHING can change human nature: we can attempt to deter/soften it, but we've already done that; there are plenty of laws concerning child endangerment, child abandonment, spousal abuse, etc. We've also put in place on both sides of the Pond, bevy upon bevy of Social Programs (with the best of intentions) to try and alleviate such suffering and circumstances.

The result? The very aid we give to such people merely allows them to all too often, descend even further into denial, irresponsi
36

Neanderthal75,

Rocky Mountains USA 26/03/2008 10:59:12
Hello again Duncan CONT,

The result? The very aid we give to such people merely allows them to all too often, descend even further into denial, irresponsibility, and hedonistic behaviour: our society REWARDS such behaviours monetarialy: single women get pregnant? No problem, we'll put you on State and Federal Welfare, and for each child you have out of wedlock, we'll increase your checks.

We'll provide you with subsidized State Housing, subsidize your utilities, provide with food stamps to buy nearly anything you will in stores, we'll provide you and your illicit progeny with free medical care, free pre-school programs, free this, free that, and you can remain on these free programs, just so long as you jump through the bureaucratic hoops which 'we' have set in place, to 'protect' you.

Don't suppose you're beginning to see the vicious circle through which I lived and survived so many decades ago, do you?

When you take personal incentive to succeed away, you take personal responsibility away: you literally create an amoral/immoral individual, willing to do whatever it takes, to keep receiving the 'free' benefits given them.

Men and women are going to drink excessively, should they have the desire, no matter how high you put the price: they'll steal if they have to, in order to get the money. They'll put their minds and effort into getting the booze, but NOT into taking care of their families: THAT is NOT a priority; that is a mere happenstance if circumstances allow them.

You are completely correct about the legal issues, but you've managed to NOT think that line of thought to its logical implications:

There already exist, laws against public drunkeness. Laws against child abuse, child abandonment (as I mentioned above), spousal battery, just as there are against theft, breaking and entering, muggings, robbery, etc.

Despite all those laws, which have LONG been in place, have any of those laws STOPPED people from breaking them?

No, not at a
37

Neanderthal75,

Rocky Mountains USA 26/03/2008 11:00:51
Hello again Duncan CONT,

No, not at all; despite the harsher sentences which were incurred, UNTIL the Politically Correct Crowd repudiated Personal Responsibility in favor of 'Societal Culpability': 'Society' made the 'do it', by 'failing' such persons in one way or another: the State coming to the 'resuce' yet again, taking away yet more personal responsibility and consequences for a person's actions and decisions.

I saw it played out in my life, and the lives of my 5 younger sisters (half sisters except for one, you get the idea). I saw it played out in the lives of the people around me.

Suffering because people simply wouldn't take responsibility when they had both the wherewithal and the opportunity to so do.

Lastly, just because all or most of the previous Ministers have done the same thing that this one wants to do, negates in no way, the FACT that raising prices/taxes on booze is STILL counter-productive and STILL stupid: as I indicated above, all it will do is to exacerbate the problem, which will of course, demand MORE public funding for the 'poor unfortunates', which will require HIGHER TAXES across the board.

I hope you'll take a closer look at what you are advocating Duncan, because I can tell you from a wide variety of first hand experience, FROM THE RECEIVING END OF THE CLUB so to speak, that what the Minister, you, and so many others support, will only cause more misery and suffering.

Please don't let that happen; cause for the kids, it really isn't any good.

The solution? Take the kids away from both parents, place them on work farms for 'orphans', in the country, were they can learn from a young age, a whole range of responsibilities: in caring for livestock, the soil, trees, growing food, etc.

Part of my heritage is Cherokee, American Indian, and I can tell you for true, that 'concrete has no soul': give children a living surrounding (the countryside), and you'll end up with much happier, more self-supportable people down th
38

Neanderthal75,

Rocky Mountains USA 26/03/2008 11:04:58
Hello again Duncan CONT,

Part of my heritage is Cherokee, American Indian, and I can tell you for true, that 'concrete has no soul': give children a living surrounding (the countryside), and you'll end up with much happier, more self-supportable, and productive people down the line. We'll ALL be better off in the long rung.

I apologize for the length of my many posts, but I wanted to help you more fully understand why I take the positions I do and continue to espouse them. This is for me, NOT an exercise in theory, it is all too real, even four and a half DECADES AFTER the fact of my childhood and of the children I knew, such as it was in the early years.

Take care.

Cheers from the Rockies
39

Duncan in Edinburgh,

26/03/2008 12:04:23
#37-41 I appreciate the time and effort in these posts. Sadly I haven't the time to respond in such detail.

I understand your central argument to be that rates of alcohol abuse will never be reduced, and so we should not make alcohol any more expensive since it will only impact on the vulnerable members of a user's family.

I'm afraid that from my point of view, that flies in the face of what we know to have been the case. Rates of alcohol abuse do change over time, under various influences including the cost of the stuff. In the UK we currently have the most affordable alcohol we have ever had - notwithstanding the duty increases made every year by successive chancellors. You perhaps weren't aware of this fact.

At the very least, we should try to maintain alcohol prices at a reasonable level rather than make it more and more accessible each year.

As for your view that families should be torn apart and children sent to orphanages, I can see a lot of downsides with that too, and history suggests that institutionalised children have far worse life experiences than most. In short, I disagree on that one.

All food for thought though.

 

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