Way to go, Widdy!
FORMER Home Office minister Ann Widdecombe spent a night out with a group of 20- something women for a programme about binge- drinking to be broadcast on Radio Five Live next week, and was absolutely shocked by what she found. The women — who included a nurse, a scientist and two teachers — admitted to going out with the deliberate aim of getting drunk and spent hundreds of pounds on vodka, wine and shots in order to achieve their aim.
One admitted it wasn’t unusual for her to spend the whole of Saturday with a hangover; they all saw no reason why they shouldn’t get drunk after a week at work. So Ann has come up with an idea: as it’s still an offence to be drunk and incapable in public, why not blitz city centres at night and arrest every drunk found collapsed in the street or clogging up A&E — and then print their names and photographs when they turn up in court.
There may no longer be shame attached to getting drunk in public — but none of the women she interviewed wanted their full names broadcast, presumably because they feared their employers would find something shameful about it.
The concept of shame goes hand in hand with reputation, and such an old-fashioned solution to the very modern problem of binge drinking could be brilliant. A COUPLE of weeks ago, I said I found it curious that, following Dennis Waterman’s revelation that he’d twice slapped and punched Rula Lenska when they were married, his current wife Pam had spoken up in his defence, but omitted to say he’d never hit her. Pam Waterman has been in touch to say Dennis has never been violent towards her. I’m delighted to hear it and happy to set the record straight. FIFTYSOMETHING former TV executive (and mother of two ‘mortified’ teenage boys) E.L. James is the British author of Fifty Shades Of Grey, the internet book dubbed ‘Mummy porn’ that became a sensation in America and has now been published here. She says its erotic fantasy ‘takes you away from doing the dishes and the laundry’. Strange, the only fantasy I have when doing the dishes is ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have a housekeeper’. CHERIE BLAIR, who we were always led to believe was a Left-wing firebrand, is busily making money from private healthcare through the private equity fund she co-founded, which is planning to open 100 private health centres.
Meanwhile, fellow lawyer Miriam Clegg — wife of the Deputy PM — is receiving substantial work (and payment) from a Moroccan mining firm accused of breaching the human rights of Saharan tribesmen.
Funny how even staunch liberal principles become elastic when money’s involved.