Health Experts Still Touchingly Deluded Over Government Cares About Public Health

"He won't live to collect his pension, you say? Oh, my."

Health campaigners are still clinging doggedly to the quaint idea that the government is in some way concerned about the welfare of the general public, it was revealed today as they warned that hundreds of thousands of people in Britain are drinking themselves to an early grave.

“Drinking too much, you say? Dear, oh dear,” smiled a spokesman for the Department of Health. “Not living to a ripe old age, you say? Well I never… Gosh, crikey, thanks for alerting us. Was there anything else? Well, goodbye then.”

“You know, if I didn’t have a touching faith in the impeccable moral authority of Britain’s politicians I might begin to wonder if the government wasn’t in some way under the influence of drink manufacturers,” mused Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians and co-author of the report in the Lancet, as he was gently ushered out onto the pavement.

A government spokesman was quick to deny the allegation. “While the Conservative party is deeply grateful for all the money it gets from the drinks industry, this in no way guarantees that their interests will be put before the far more important contributions of the big supermarkets,” he insisted.