A year ago statistics were published about child substance abuse, or more realistically put...drinking habits. This February just gone Jacqui Smith attempted to use those statistics to justify hounding kids off of the street and further taking away the rights of youths that were (previously) acting completely lawfully, cementing the idea of Labour as a nanny-state with Smith as it's queen.

Some things however didn't make sense, as I uncovered in the statistics. Painting children as alcoholics for having simply ever tried alcohol even if they only did it once was the order of the day, and indeed it seemed a large emphasis was going on to kids drinking in the streets when a large percentage of them actually also drank in their parents home.

Now it is the time of the Telegraph to completely and utterly butcher the actual message of this years statistics, causing potentially one of the most idiotic statements I've ever heard courtesy of Norman Lamb

These are shocking figures, reflecting a culture where binge-drinking is truly out of control.

I call bullshit on this statement, read on to find out why.

Just in case you thought I was one of those people that simply lives to bad mouth the current government, here is a posting I didn't know that I was going to be able to make any time soon. Yes, my name is Lee Griffin, and I have some praise for Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown when it comes to tackling knife crime.

And you know, while we're at it with the praise, I think it's about time that the armed forces were able to get free education, enabling those that either find themselves no longer able to serve, or wish to rethink their occupation (no pun intended), the chance to smoothly make that transition from soldier to business person...or indeed whatever they wish.

Let me get this out of the way straight away, I think the stats that the Lib Dems have uncovered using the Freedom of Information act are never going to be positive. Any rise in the amount of kids being admitted to A&E because of alcohol related problems is a negative. The question for me is are they as much of a negative as pure percentages would suggest, and what are the realities of such data. Unfortunately no matter how much scouring I can do will uncover qualitative data.

The overall numbers mask alarming regional differences. We need to find out why the number of children drinking so much that they end up in hospital is so much higher in some parts of the country. - Norman Lamb MP

A bit late this week but here none the less. This week's PMQs really needed to be better than recent ones if any of the politicians taking part were to come off looking like mature adults, and thankfully this week saw an upturn in the standard of what was debated. Gone was the issue of Northern Rock (thank god) and the big scandals for both big parties meant that no-one was going to go on the party-political offensive regarding untrustworthy MPs. With this we were left with key subjects, crime, military and housing

I personally think that the BBC is spot on for saying that they want to do more to promote politics and trust in the political system of the UK in the future, but also that in turn it make themselves look stupid for having not done more in the past on the subject. There have also been comments around saying that the move was a bribe, effectively, and this is an interesting if not slightly irrelevant angle.

From this has arisen some discussion about why the BBC need to do this, questioning just why people are disengaged with politics. Some say that it's because there is no mystery any more, and that it's too open, too ugly. Other's say that the media's closeness just shows up how clandestine politics can still be. Personally I have to say let's face it, it's not the openness or mystery of politics that stops people from engaging. I doubt the people sitting around post war were going and voting still because of the allure of the mystery behind Westminster, and I severely doubt people aren't getting involved now because things are seemingly more transparent.

The BBC are currently reporting, while I wait to hear what the Republican South Carolina primary result turns out to be, that "in Hillary Clinton's own words" this is a big win for her. Well...of course she would say that, she needs to keep her momentum going. But is it a big win really? In reality what happened was that she slipped from a clear 20 point lead over Obama before Christmas, tainting herself with the issues about legal wranglings over where caucuses could be held and her team not helping her image in the public spotlight, ultimately beating Obama by only 6 points (it would appear).

The next big program in the food fight season that I was able to see (I must admit I've yet to watch the dispatches documentary that will probably round up this series of blogs, and missed a program about an extreme diet) features 18 unhealthy eaters. These are people addicted to junk food, to pepsi, and even those that don't even eat vegetables...at all. The reasons are varied, from liking what they eat in terms of taste all the way down to one saying there's not enough time to eat anything else. Along side them will be Jamie Oliver with his team to try and wise them up, a doctor, nutritionist and Gunther von Hagens, that creepy looking guy that cuts up dead bodies. Today it will be one guy who was 25 stone at his death for the main course.

The program went in to the main areas of why junk food is bad; sugar, salt, lack of fibre, cholesterol and fat. These five areas will be looked at for why they are bad, how our 18 bad eaters are falling into bad habits, and also what the best way to avoid and potentially reverse the effects are. All in all the program was very interesting, and despite the multitude of things I've watched and read on the subject it was still able to teach me some things. I didn't quite buy in to the style but I know others would so I believe this is really essential viewing for the education of people on their habits. Below is my review.

So I guess I wouldn't really be a liberal blogger unless I commented on the Lib Dem leadership election. Nick Clegg won with 50.6% of the vote, which of course by any count is a very slim victory. It's never a nice position to be on the losing side of a result when the margin in so slim but Chris Huhne must try not to feel too dejected...to me it is clear that those that voted saw two very equal candidates and despite what some people are saying this is only positive for the party.

Today Newsbeat on Radio 1 has rekindled the never ending issue about raising the minimum age for consumption of alcohol to 21, staying pretty much in line with previous BBC hosted polls that put the population as being half in favour and half not for the changes. This issue is a particular bugbear of mine, not only with drinking but also with the age of sexual consent and entertainment certification as more than a guideline. As someone who believes in personal liberties I find it discomforting that I should be viewed in the same light as the rest of the population my age and assessed in a generalised manner as to what I can personally deal with; I like to think that kids actually affected by these legal limits feel somewhat the same.

This isn't to say that I don't understand the need for basic levels of protection, to protect rebellious children from themselves if their parents are unable to give them the supervision and guidance they require, however to try and claim that arbitrary age limits on performing certain actions are successful in that task, I feel, is naive and short sighted.

In this article:

• Alcohol limits
• Teen pregnancy and age of consent limits
• Why limits don't make sense

Listening to today's PMQ's was much more like those that we have watched through November and October, with Gordon Brown appearing to have very limited skills for getting through the proceedings and both opposition leaders getting the better of him (at least in this posters eyes).

A rather drab PMQ's saw little of national interest, and what little there was of national interest was ducked and avoided by the Labour leader. Issues about Kosovo, the danger for women in Iraq and the inequality of standards applied to police split by the English-Scottish border were all sidestepped largely, and the only question really adequately answered was that of security for those that lost out in their pension schemes.

Now the reason I was drawn to write this post is that Gordon Browns response to a claim from Vince Cable that 40 women have been executed in Basra for "personal immorality", and who exactly have we delivered these powers to, was that there had been a 90% fall in violence recently.