This time last year, Scotland introduced minimum unit pricing for alcohol. The logic behind the policy rested on a study by Sheffield University that claimed a minimum price of 50p per unit, as was legislated for in Scotland, would “reduce alcohol consumption in Scotland by 3.5% or 26.3 units per drinker per year.” Expenditure on alcohol was only predicted to rise by the negligible amount of 0.7%. How did the expert predictions fare..?

Actually expenditure on alcohol has risen by more than fifteen times their prediction – 10.7%. As for the number of units consumed, the thing they were trying to lower… units consumed increased by 1%. Now in whatever the opposite of evidence based policy is, the Welsh Government is looking to implement the same failed policy. Governments should leave people to drink their mojitos in peace…

Feminists have continued their crusade against women being able to make their own decisions by trying to shut down a legal strip club with covert filming. One group hired two male undercover investigators to film naked and semi-naked encounters with women in Sheffield earlier this year, and Guido is told this is happening across the country. Actively working to intimidate independent women because they work in an industry they disapproves of, in the name of ‘Women’s Equality’.

The United Voices of the World union which represents many of the women working in the industry has claimed that the Women’s Equality Party is behind the covert filming and demanded that the group “cease its campaign of harassment and intimidation against dancers” and delete “what could amount to ‘revenge porn’ of naked women, obtained with the explicit aim to undermine and harm them.” Under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015…

“The non-consensual sharing of any explicit film or photograph showing an individual depicted in a sexual way or with their private parts exposed, where what is visible in the image would not be seen in public”

… is a crime.

United Voices of the World added that the filming “without explicit and direct consent and in clear violation of their right to privacy, is not just immoral — it is unlawful.” Awkward…

UPDATE: A previous version of this attributed the filming to the Women’s Equality Party. They tell us it is not their doing. Some members do support the campaign.

A spin doctor to Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has been sacked after failing to declare he was facing drugs charges. Paul Gilfeather, a media adviser to Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester was last seen in public attending the Mayor’s Christmas party in December. According to a report in the Manchester Evening News, a week after the party the 46-year-old admitted possession of heroin and cocaine. You didn’t have to be on drugs to work there…

Ishmael Osamor, son of Shadow International Development Secretary Kate Osamor, has received a community service sentence after being found in possession of some £2,000 worth of Class A drugs. Ishmael works as a press officer in his mother’s parliamentary office and also became a Labour Councillor in Haringey last year following the controversial deselection of two sitting Labour Councillors. Although Osamor has not declared this in the Register of Members’ Interests – which is a breach of the rules by her.

Councillor Ishmael was caught with 30 grammes of ecstasy, 7.5 grammes of cocaine, 5.7 grammes of ketamine and a bit of cannabis with a total street value of between £1,690 and £2,500. Because prosecutors accepted his claim that this haul of drugs was for “personal use” the judge did not jail him. If he had been taking the drugs to last year’s Bestival event in Dorset for profit he would have got for 4 years jail time. Guido doffs his cap to Ishmael who must have an incredible constitution that would put Keith Richards in his prime to shame. That much ketamine would knock out an elephant, 30 grammes of ecstasy would put a rugby team into rapture for a week and 7 grammes of cocaine is quite some pace for a weekend. Bestival had one drug related death last year...

Guido hears that alongside the transformation of Parliament’s infamous Sports and Social bar into ‘The Wool Sack’, Parliamentary authorities have sneakily reduced the number of guests allowed to be brought into the bar by a passholder from six to just two. Passholders on the Parliamentary estate can still take up to six guests elsewhere…

This move appears to be an attempt to crack down on rowdy behaviour after the bar faced closure last year over a glassing. Guido isn’t convinced about this move. From his experience, it usually isn’t the guests who make the trouble…

Sajid Javid announced today that medicinal cannabis will be available on prescription from the NHS as early as this Autumn. “Senior clinicians” will be able to prescribe cannabis derived medicinal products to patients who are deemed to have an “exceptional clinical need.”

Based Sajid. There’s a new Absolute Boy in town…