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Forget the battle between Dems and Reps, the US now has an elected independent socialist in the Senate.

Bernie Sanders.

Just a week into the ban on smoking in enclosed "public" places, there has been much coverage of Conservative plans to increase the tax on alcohol to discourage "binge drinkers" - an idea which, if memory serves, was mooted late last year by the government itself anyway. I like to think that it was such a crazy idea then that it contributed to Ms Hewitt's removal from the health brief.

But on both issues, on health grounds at least for the participants (if not the passive smokers and people beaten up by drunks), surely the best answer is a complete ban? Both are drugs. Alcohol in particular can be served up as a very powerful concoction, ten or more times more powerful than the cider I used to get hold of at school. In study after study when respected organizations look at the wider social effects of different drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, they have upheld the "Blakemore/Nutt hierarchy of harms" which puts alcohol fifth, tobacco ninth, both ahead of cannabis at eleventh and ecstasy way down at nineteenth out of twenty one substances they evaluated. You can read the whole reasoning in the RSA report - and don't pretend to tell me that the RSA is looking at archeological pot finds from the Bullingdon Club of the eighties as we are perhaps led to believe, they are looking at today's market in drugs.

In 2004 in Britain around 106,000 people died from causes related to smoking tobacco, and every other smoker is likely to die because of illness and disease caused by their use of tobacco. There were 8,389 alcohol related deaths. And, while there were 2,598 deaths 'from drug related poisoning' that includes prescribed and over the counter drug misuse, and in fact only 663 were put down to heroin, methadone, cocaine, amphetamine (including ecstasy) and GHB. And, as we know from these studies, the alcohol related deaths are if anything rising not falling.

So clearly the rational response is to ban what are two of the most addictive and dangerous substances we know of. Why would any government wish to be complicit in the licensing for recreational consumption of such killers? But not only that, the Treasury no doubt rubs its hands with glee at the prospect of taking money from these drug addicts and the pushers who supply them, the tobacco and drinks industries. Blood money - that's what it is.

So, which of you competing authoritarian parties is going to bite that bullet? It's populist tinkering nonsense. Something must be done, this is something so let's do this. Let us choose our poison and help make sure our choice is a safe as possible by legalization and regulation of all these substances. Banning them makes their grip stronger. Indeed, as recent evidence on cannabis shows, it makes them stronger.

And I haven't even begun to talk about caffeine, sugar and chocolate. These last two of course contributing to a ticking time bomb of ill-health and early death through obesity related conditions. If you believe people know best and are capable of making their own decisions, let them. Otherwise, do the rational thing and ban all these currently legal killers too and be done with it.

Technorati Tags: alcohol, cannabis, conservatives, drugs laws, liberty, smoking ban

Excellent news - the big broadcasters will soon be wasting less money bidding up for coverage of "premium sport". Now don't give me all that guff about how the money does wonderful things. It skews sport in favour of a few superteams in each sport, making it much harder for lower order teams to bridge the gap successfully. The broadcasters are paying far more than the costs of recovering their technical outlay - they are paying an economic rent on top simply to outbid the next guy.

So the fact that it is harder and harder to stop such broadcasts being available free, and by all reports live, on the internet, would suggest to me that the value of that economic rent is going to fall rapidly. And we, the consumer, will have a freer and more competitive market for sports viewing. And hopefully an American billionnaire will not feel the desire to buy my dear Liverpool FC.

Illegal net sport faces crackdown:
By Ian Youngs

Sports authorities are taking action to stop illegal live coverage of football and other events over the internet.

Almost all English Premiership matches are available to watch live and for free, as are other leagues and sports.

The coverage, mainly from Chinese sport channels, is put on peer-to-peer applications and can be watched anywhere in the world.

As well as football, some sites are also claiming to offer live cricket action from The Ashes in Australia.

It's not because I am a liberal I find one particular aspect of this abhorrent:

• Convicted criminals to serve the full sentence given to them by the judge.

...but because I am a Christian, and I believe in expiation, repentance and the ability of people to change their lives for the better, and in ways a judge at the time of a trial could not anticipate.

There's plenty of other stuff to get worried about as a liberal of course, but I would urge Christians not to fall for this particular piece of knee-jerk populist authoritarianism.