Labour's Little Red Book only has one picture, of course, and that picture is of Tony. But the party has chosen to illustrate its online manifesto rather differently. There's a mother and child, a cheerful old man (not Gordon Brown, obviously), a female Community Support Officer, a group of schoolchildren playing chess and - curiously - another pensioner piling red wine into his supermarket trolley. In a society obsessed with cutting down on alcohol-related disease and binge drinking, is this really what the elderly should be spending their council tax rebate on?
Well, yes, actually. One of Labour's chief boasts is that it has lifted pensioners out of poverty. Poor people can't afford to buy wine. Subliminal message: Britain is now a country where the elderly can afford to treat themselves. It's also a country where 24-hour drinking is permissible, even desirable - just as long as you stay quietly indoors to do it.
