Turn left at Le Lion Rouge

Some time back - probably around the time that the government introduced the smoking ban in England and Wales - I speculated that the ruling class will now consider the war on tobacco all but won and would move on to their next pet hate.

Illegal drugs?

No!! Don't be silly - the ruling class love their spliffs and the odd line of coke - it's cool, trendy and hip to take mind bending drugs at the all the best Islington set dinner parties. Come on - you don't honestly believe that anyone can come up with the barking mad ideas of the liberal left without the use of strong artificial stimulants, do you?

Of course, if the ruling class applied the same fervour to eradicating the use of weed that they did for cigarettes the junkie population would halve in a decade, but then again if the ruling class committed mass suicide the UK cocaine market would shrink by two thirds overnight. It's a thought - actually not a bad one either.

Anyway, I digress. Having taken on and defeated the favourite relaxant of the working class masses, the next target for the liberal left is alcohol - and the method for doing this is going to be the same as they used for cigarettes. Having brow beaten smokers with the mythical and unproven fear of "passive smoking", the left have decided that they can do the same with alcohol and so have come up with "passive drinking".

Yep - those darling unelected and unaccountable career leftists of the EU and the UN have decided that they are going to make drinking as "socially unacceptable" as smoking. Shame they didn't think of making drug taking as socially unacceptable as smoking, but there you go. Why bother with tackling illegal drugs when "passive  illegal drug use" is only the root cause of some 80% of crime? Much better to trump up some unverifiable statistics for the demon booze.

Of course, drinking to excess is bad and leads to bad behaviour, but the vast majority of alcohol users are responsible, decent law abiding folk. Nevertheless, the typical response of the lefties is to find the biggest sledgehammer they can find to batter the nut to smithereens.

Quite how the EU will square this with the myriad of people whose livelihoods depend on alcohol production isn't clear - though I suspect they will just subsidise them into submission with our money - just like they do with the EU based tobacco farmers. One thing is certain, though - the main target of their campaign will not be producers of vin rouge or champagne. Shit, no - that would be too much for the liberal left to bear!

Nah - the sledgehammer will be aimed at the working class tipple - beer.

It's only a matter of time now. Within the next 10 years prepare to be going to pubs where not only smoking is banned, but beer too. Expect the Rose & Crown to be replaced with the Rosa Y Corona Tapas Bar and the Red Lion to become Le Lion Rouge Wine Bar.