Janet Street-Porter backs minimum pricing
Outspoken social commentator Janet Street-Porter has backed chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson's calls for minimum pricing of alcohol.
Speaking at an all women panel chaired by Publican editor Caroline Nodder yesterday to discuss why the majority of women in the UK don't drink beer, Porter said she was in favour.
"I think minimum pricing is a really good idea. Part of the problem in Britain is that compared to Southern European countries, people drink in a different way," she said.
"Here we slurp. Beer is part of the slurping culture where you down a massive amount of liquid in one go. We drink to get drunk whereas in a Southern European culture they don't.
She said that introducing a minimum price per unit of alcohol - such as the 50p per unit recommended by the Publican's Make it the Minimum campaign - would help people develop healthier attitudes towards alcohol.
"We shouldn't equate drink as being cheap and that's the route that drink has gone down in this country. If beer was priced like wine we would respect it and drink it differently."
The panel was organied by the BitterSweet Partnership - a business set up by brewer Coors to breakdown barriers between women and beer.
BitterSweet partnership director Kirsty Derry, social commentator Fran Cutler, designer Amy Molyneaux, beer maker Harriet Easton, chef Allegra McEvedy and broadcaster Carol McGiffin were chosen to represent women across the UK.
During the debate, the panel identified male focused advertising, the "ladette" stereotype and the lack of positive role models promoting beer as their drink of choice as major reasons why few women in the UK drank beer regularly.
The drinks industry's failure to capitalise on the refreshing nature of beer or to emphasise its relatively low calorific content was also highlighted.
