The inexact science of the nanny state
FOR anyone familiar with British social history, recent calls for taxes on sugar and salt might have brought to mind the Gin Act of 1736 that punished drinkers by slapping 20 shillings on a gallon of mother’s ruin. The fact that the Londoners depicted in consumed gin at an alarming rate of two pints a week was blamed for everything from rising crime to a falling birth rate (for anyone familiar with , this might bring to mind the porter’s observation in Act II that alcohol ‘promotes the desire but takes away the performance’.)
