Thursday 25 August 2011

Let's stop right at the word 'new'

From the BBC 14 February 2011:

The number of admissions to hospital in the UK because of problem drinking could rise to 1.5 million a year by 2015, a charity says. Alcohol Concern estimates that it will cost the NHS £3.7bn annually if nothing is done to stop the increase... The charity says the number of people being treated in hospital for alcohol misuse has gone from 500,000 in 2002-3 to 1.1 million in 2009-10.

From The Metro 25 August 2011

The number of people treated in hospital every day for drink-related illnesses has risen by nearly half in just five years. In total, there were 1.1million admissions in England in 2009/10 – a rise of 879 a day, new research reveals... Prof Ian Gilmore, chairman of Alcohol Health Alliance UK, told Metro the figures showed the softly-softly policy of working with the drinks industry to combat alcohol abuse was not working.

So all we can glean from all this is that Alcohol Concern have been relegated and the Lib-Cons favoured fakecharity seems to be Alcohol Health Alliance UK* with PIG in charge. You'll note that the first article ends with a quote agreeing that 'something must be done' from an unnamed 'spokesperson for the Department of Health' but the second article ends with such a quote from an actual named 'Health Minister'.

* AHAUK is a super-fakecharity, the full list of its member fakecharities is here

UPDATE: Via Velvet Glove, how they manipulate and exaggerate the number of 'alcohol-related admissions' is explained here.

8 comments:

banned said...

You might just as well have stopped at the word 'could', para 1.

I suppose "super-fakecharity" was the natural progression with the added beneft that when they post rubbish or in bad taste (2010 No Pressure) no-one will have to take the blame.
I see that AHAUK lists 5 job opportunities, 4 of which are beyond their application closing dates.

Bayard said...

What's the collective noun for bansturbators?

Mark Wadsworth said...

Banned, good point.

B, they are referred to as "the bansturbulary".

Deniro said...

articles that quote fake charities and ministers give the appearance of consensus amongst people presented as independant, the same on radio when they are introduced as an independant party in a discussion with a minister when in fact the both represent the gvmt

Rob said...

You just know these figures have been manipulated in some way, and shortly someone will point out exactly how, but by then the myth will be established.

James Higham said...

Well spotted. It's bad when the print has to be read for possible fakeness these days and yet it's necessary.

Dick Puddlecote said...

'PIG', I like it. :)

You're not wrong about AHAUK, it's an aggregation of publicly-funded interests whose entire income relies on scaring us all witless over alcohol. A more unreliable source it is impossible to imagine. Yet government trusts them implicitly.

It's the modern way, sadly.

Bayard said...

Great system isn't it - the government pays our money to organisations so that they can tell the government what it wants to hear.