Meanwhile, on a day that America celebrates freedom, here’s a round-up of various initiatives (all from the UK, but even if it’s July 4, there’s no need to be smug – this sort of nonsense is just as prevalent over here) that go in the opposite direction.

Let’s start off with the doctors. The BMA (Britain’s equivalent of the AMA) has long been a preserve of the self-important and the interfering. Now it has just voted in favor of banning alcohol advertising from TV. One Leigh Bisset (described by the Daily Telegraph as a “medical student” – so young but so pompous?) had this to say:

“Alcohol harms, and we want to see the glorification of it on our television screens ended…”

(While we’re on this topic, thanks to the readers who responded to that story by Stephen Pollard with hangover remedies of their own. Vitamin B6 – who knew? The best approach, of course, is two aspirin and a large glass of water before you go to bed, followed by a Fat Coke (Diet won’t do) and two more aspirin when you get up the next morning. Follow, if you can, with bacon, eggs, fried tomatoes and fried bread).

The role of a doctor is always to advise – never to give orders. Anything more is impertinence. If I am ever unfortunate enough to find myself in Bisset’s surgery I shall haul my doubtless disease-ridden and broken body to another more congenial spot.

The BMA then managed to give even more evidence of its profound intellectual confusion by voting against medical marijuana (for MS sufferers), but for some forms of drug legalization.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone as an advocate for the nanny state, Britain’s Chief Medical Officer has called for the prohibition of smoking in public places. The madness, it seems, shows no sign of stopping.