階級差異
《衛報》報道，最新調查顯示，英國工黨政府在執政10年期間未能縮小英國階級差異，英國仍然是一個階級劃分明顯的社會。
儘管英國首相布朗在今年的工黨大會上表示，"無階級差別社會"在英國不僅是一句標語，而是可以變為現實"。
但文章說，絕大多數英國人認為，社會階層固化了他們在別人眼中的形像。在接受調查的人中，89%的人認為不同的社會階層會受到不同待遇﹔50%的人認為社會階層十分重要﹔只有8%的人覺得階層與出身並不重要。
文章指出，窮人對社會階層的體會最為明顯。55%的窮人認為，人們如何看待一個人主要取決於這個人的社會階層而非能力。調查還表明，有53%的人認為自己是工人階層，41%的人認為自己是中產階層，而認為自己屬於上等階層的人只有2%。
飲酒限制
《泰晤士報》報道，英國實行了20多年的飲酒量安全警戒標準是缺乏科學依據的。 
文章說，英國政府自1987年以來開始推出了一套飲酒量安全指導標準，認為男性每周飲酒21杯以下、女性每日飲酒14倍以下是安全的。
文章引述有關專家的話說，流行病學專家已經承認，現行飲酒量安全指導是不科學的 。由於沒有具體數據和分析，很難說情究竟喝多少酒是安全的。
但專家同時指出，長期大量飲酒的確會對人體造成慢性傷害，導致疾病發生。因此，有關部門應重新修訂有關保健信息，提倡人們少喝酒。
Drink limits ‘useless’
Explore alcohol limitations further with a 'Tipple Too Far'
Guidelines on safe alcohol consumption limits that have shaped health policy in Britain for 20 years were “plucked out of the air” as an “intelligent guess”.
The Times reveals today that the recommended weekly drinking limits of 21 units of alcohol for men and 14 for women, first introduced in 1987 and still in use today, had no firm scientific basis whatsoever.
Subsequent studies found evidence which suggested that the safety limits should be raised, but they were ignored by a succession of health ministers.
One found that men drinking between 21 and 30 units of alcohol a week had the lowest mortality rate in Britain. Another concluded that a man would have to drink 63 units a week, or a bottle of wine a day, to face the same risk of death as a teetotaller.
The disclosure that the 1987 recommendation was prompted by “a feeling that you had to say something” came from Richard Smith, a member of the Royal College of Physicians working party that produced it.
He told The Times that the committee’s epidemiologist had confessed that “it’s impossible to say what’s safe and what isn’t” because “we don’t really have any data whatsoever”.
Mr Smith, a former Editor of the British Medical Journal, said that members of the working party were so concerned by growing evidence of the chronic damage caused by heavy, long-term drinking that they felt obliged to produce guidelines. “Those limits were really plucked out of the air. They were not based on any firm evidence at all. It was a sort of intelligent guess by a committee,” he said.
Mr Smith’s disclosure casts doubt on the accuracy of a report published this week that blamed middle-class wine drinkers for placing some of Britain’s most affluent towns at the top of the “hazardous drinking” list.
The study, commissioned by the Government, relied on the 1987 guidelines when it suggested that men drinking more than 21 units a week and women consuming more than 14 units put their health “at significant risk”.
In a further attack on Britain’s drinkers, it was revealed yesterday that a coalition of health organisations is mounting a campaign to force a 10 per cent increase in alcohol taxation.
The group, headed by the Royal College of Physicians, is also seeking to secure the support of MPs for stricter regulation of the drinks industry and warnings on alcohol advertising. A total of 21 bodies, including Alcohol Concern and the British Liver Trust, will form the Alcohol Health Alliance, according to Harpers Wine and Spirit magazine.
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