The liquored Cabinet

What silly season? There should be less news as we head into the depths of summer, right? But today there's almost too much. Amid the news that brought rejoicing around the world -- that Steven Gerrard has re-signed for Liverpool -- comes the latest entry in that perpetual career graveyard: the after-dinner speech. This one's a shame because as often happens with these things, it seems like a decent person got a bit carried away with the occasion, and perhaps the booze, and so things got a bit edgy.

The person in question is Louise Casey, the head of Tony Blair's antisocial behaviour unit, who delivered the speech after a dinner organised by the Home Office for senior police officers last month. And here's the quote that's getting all the attention:

Doing things sober is no way to get things done. I've tried to explain that to ministers but they don't get it. Turn up in the morning pissed. You might cope a bit better, love

Of course one knows all the reasons not to say this: that alcoholism is no laughing matter, that alcohol impairs the mental faculties and is associated with various social ills. But it's not for nothing that Homer Simpson famously described it as "the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems." For one thing, consider the world's most powerful dry drunk, George W. Bush: might he relax a bit if he'd spare us yet another of those dorky "toasts," one doubtless coming in Scotland, where he has a glass of water to match everyone else's Champagne -- and just take a f*cking sip, for God's sake! You're fearless in the Global War on Terror but can't be near a drink?

Anyway, back to Louise. Lost in her words of praise for booze was a dead-on attack on the culture of jargon and buzzwords at Downing Street (which is not unique to them, of course):

"There is an obsession with evidence-based policy. If Number 10 says bloody evidence-based policy to me one more time I'll deck them one."

The John Prescott left hook is strongly recommended for such situations.