Sober On Power

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Adh here.

How your Xmas Guinness ad may look under ad blocking measures to ‘curb’ alcohol consumption in Ireland.

Eamon Delaney, of free market think tank Hibernia Forum, writes:

This (above) is what an iconic Irish beer ad, from the legendary Guinness brand, would look like under proposed new measures in the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill

…a sledgehammer approach to the alcohol and hospitality sector which hurts consumers, producers and those of us who believe in individual freedoms and not being treated like children.

Politicians love this Nanny State stuff, as it distracts from the real pressing issues and gives them easy publicity and the approval of media experts
.

Hopefully, others in our political culture will see through this easy populism and how such blanket unproven measures hurt industry, retailers, the tourist trade and ordinary consumers.

Hopefully, they will call a halt to this censorship and business-damaging measure. Enough is enough.

Hic

Nanny State : How an iconic beer ad would look under the Government’s new sledgehammer Public Health (Alcohol) BiHibernia Forum

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38 thoughts on “Sober On Power

  1. MoyestWithExcitement

    Right wingers really are just overgrown toddlers who’ve been told to eat their vegetables. ‘No fair. Mam and dad can’t tell me what to do!’

  2. Nigel

    Oh no not the classic Guinness Christmas ad the whole family likes to gather round and watch that every year it won’t be Christmas without it how will we hide our alcoholism behind a veneer of glossy imagery of idealised seasonal cliches and commercialised nostalgia?

    1. scottser

      Ah get a grip. The ads romanticise everything at Christmas – from sausage rolls to jax rolls. Why should beer be any different?

  3. Gorev Mahagut

    Diageo. Sort of like Pablo Escobar but with beer instead of cocaine. And adverts on the telly. Rolling in the money, everyone’s happy. So what if some people can’t handle their drink, don’t ruin the fun for everyone else. But the good times don’t last. One too many deaths. Journalists start asking questions. You can’t trust politicians, they smile when they see you but when you turn your back… Now poor Pablo Diageo, chased by the Feds, living in hiding, dragging his overweight carcass up through the skylight and over the rooftops before dying in a hail of corrupt police bullets. Thousands throng to the funeral, and leading the cortege: the widow Eamon Delaney, wiping the tears away behind a black lace veil. Dramatically leaping on the coffin before they lower him into the grave. “Ah poor Diageo! Who will look after his children now?”

    1. Rob

      Fun fact: Arthur Guinness ran against Daniel O’Connell on the basis that DOC (the emancipator, abolitionist) was too much of a radical.

      I’m just disappointed the Government kicked up a fuss when Diageo wanted to sell off huge amounts of James’s Gate a few years back. It might have helped us break our irrational love of the company and we could have built masses of overpriced student accommodation and all the office blocks a tax dodging unicorn could possibly want.

  4. Johnnotjohn

    Government “We want to try to reduce the consumption of heroin.”

    These willies: “But heroin comes in a beautiful syringe”

  5. bisted

    …if the government has identified cost as a factor in alcohol abuse, why don’t they just raise duty until the minimum price desired is reached…like they do with tobacco*

    * I know the answer. A clue is: who benifits from minimum pricing.

        1. bisted

          …no…I like drinking…worked 8 years in the business and managed to acquire some very expensive tastes but I also acquired an immense respect for drink…anyone who drinks alcohol will be punished for this bit of nonsense…this amounts to a government sponsered cartel that benefits nobody except the industry…their margins increase and costs decrease and it’s all preceived as being for the public good…

  6. myownself

    So? Those who create the ads will just have to become more creative, and they will. I don’t see the problem.

  7. milk teeth

    Advertiser creates advert to try and influence people into an action. Government amends advert in order to influence people the other way. Advertiser then runs off crying saying the government is trying to force people to do something. So its fine if a private organisation dose something to bolster its profits but when a government dose it to help support the health of the nation it’s a bad idea?

  8. AFoxIndeed

    not really adding anything to the debate, but I hate that ad, especially the tool who says “don’t forget to turn the lights off”.

    Guinness make great ads, and most likely will continue to, even with restrictions

  9. Sheik Yahbouti

    I think that if it were not for the (transitory) comfort that alcohol and tobacco provides there would be a great deal more social unless. indeed there might be armed revolution. Have our Masters who know what’s best for the lower orders thought of that?

      1. Sheik Yahbouti

        My point exactly. Although I have noticed a tendency on this and other websites to be enthusiastic “ban-ers” of anything they don’t personally enjoy. There were people here having an absolute s*it haemorrage when they thought their access to internet porn might be affected. Human nature, I suppose – what I like is good, what THEY like is appalling. PS, the seat belt argument has been done to death.

  10. Joe

    Sounds like bunch of winging by those who will be hit in the pocket, vintners. They didn’t even get the video right as they left the claddagh in third version which is a location. piss off think tank.

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