Question Time this week is the Schools Special – and that brings with it two innovations. Firstly there’s the option to watch it live at 8pm on BBC3 – hence the much earlier appearance of this post than usual; and secondly one of the panellists will be a young person to be announced on the night.
There will also be the following not-quite-so-young people joining in the debate: Andy Burnham MP, Jeremy Hunt MP, Sarah Teather MP, and Shami Chakrabarti.
As last week, we hope to have a magic Facebook window appearing here:
If you’re tuning in, you can join the simultanous online Twitter debate here at #bbcqt, or the LDV debate in the thread below. Meanwhile Lib Dem blogger Mark Thompson will be liveblogging events via CoverItLive at his own blog.
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The Lib Dems have led on the most important issues raised, including Afghanistan and Deaths increased by 40% from Drink, under Labour.
The young audience in this edition of `Question Time’ supported Nick Clegg`s demands for closer scrutiny of Government on protecting our soldiers from being put in harms way due to poor equipment,not driving armoured vehicles as robust as the American equivalent and more helicopters for transport and possible additional troop numbers, to add greater cover.
The Government`s response and policy to the question on the increased deaths from drink, under Labour by 40% (all age groups) is non existent.
Sarah Teacher suggests that there should be a curb ban or law applied on cheaper than cost price of alcohol in supermarkets, is excellent.
The problem is that alcohol `binge drinking’ has taken control of so many young lives, that the alarming stats. of rising numbers of irreversible liver damage and infertility,now show.
This Govt. have provided the licence to pubs,clubs,supermarkets and shops to sell alcohol ad naseum.
It has not heeded the warnings repeatedly made by experts dealing with the fall out at hospitals in the UK, like Prof. Ian Gilmour Royal College of Physicians.
The Health Department has admitted that 15,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning.
Norman Lamb Health Shadow has said that Local Authorities must put into place measures that restrict and stop alcohol abuse.
Sarah Teather made a good point about who exactly is suffering from alcohol related health problems.
We think “Binge drinking” and we think of young people falling over in the street, getting raucous and being anti-social. And the media push the idea (deliberately or not) that the people who overdo it once a week that are the problem.
The young drinker who occasionally gets smashed is the tip of the iceberg and not a significant part of the problem. Most hospital admissions are much older (mid 30s to mid 50s men I understand) and likely to be consistent drinkers. They may go on to have health problems later in life, or relatively minor mishaps but the real causes of alchol related illness occur quietly, regularly and behind closed doors.
Teather is wrong about alcohol. It is not very liberal either. Apart from that I thought she did well and I do think she has more than a fair chance to beat the New Labour Lobby fodder and serial trougher she is up against but this nonsense about minimum pricing for alcohol is intensely annoying as it ignores the root cause why people drink to excess and behave boorishly and punishes the majority of us who do not.