Manchester

Andrew Adonis, one of the policy brains of the Blair government and now seated in the House of Lords, has a letter in tomorrow's edition of the Spectator responding to Neil O'Brien's cover article of last week. In it, Adonis suggests one way that the political class could help purge the Londonitis from its collective system: move the House of Lords to Greater Manchester. Here's the full text of the letter, for CoffeeHousers: Sir, As Neil O’Brien rightly says, London is New York, Washington and LA rolled into one, which is unhealthy for our national politics. So I have a serious suggestion.

Politicians often get nervous around alcohol – and not just because, in these straitened times, a glass of champagne can broadcast the wrong image. No, the real concern is the more basic, fiscal one: how should it be taxed and priced? There's a difficult trade-off involved. Pushing up the cost of alcohol could halt the staggering advance of binge drinking and all its associated social and medical ills. But, depending on what booze is targeted, it could also hit the least well-off harder than anyone else. And who's to say whether the effect on drinking habits would be that substantial anyway? The trickiness of the situation was clearly demonstrated by Labour's internal ding-dong over minimum pricing back in January.