Dry January, temperance & the left
Dry January is well underwat. The annual campaign that suggests people should abstain from alcohol during the month to recover from possible festive excesses and just generally to cut down on drinking has perhaps been a little less strident this year. Perhaps there is a recognition that much of hospitality is struggling and if people visit the pub less, drinking alcohol or not, they may find it closed next time they stop by.
Naming the excellent Lucky Saint as the (lo/no alcohol) beer of Dry January is a step forward.
Drinking in moderation is certainly prudent, abstention, and what from (spirits, beer, the whole lot) has been historically contentious.
Dry January in itself sits rather oddly in modern Britain. There are considerable sections of the community who for religious or cultural reasons don’t drink. That doesn’t mean they don’t visit pubs or perhaps on occasion, for some, drink but the message to abstain from alcohol in January flies past the ear here,
Temperance was once an important part of working-class and labour politics and the tradition is far from dead, even if the commercial weight of the promotion of mass market beers and lagers somewhat obscures it. Keir Hardie was a temperance supporter and while current Labour leader Keir Starmer is known to like a glass of beer he doesn’t make a thing of it.
It is an honourable tradition rooted in dislike of giving money to (Tory) drinks manufacturers and a realisation that unsober people rarely get to change the world for the better.
We might however also be reminded what the Labour MP Victor Grayson had to say about efforts to promote temperance in law in the House of Commons over a hundred years ago:
In October 1908 he tried to adjourn a Licensing Debate in the Commons so the question of unemployment could be considered. The next day he underlined the point: ‘there are thousands of people dying in the streets while you are trifling with this Bill’.
Drink or not this January, it’s a matter of personal choice. If you want to campaign there might be more urgent matters just now.
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