Who are they? The people who decide how we should run our lives. The busybodies who say that we can’t smoke foxes or smack our children. The nitwits who say that we should have a new bank holiday to celebrate traffic wardens and social workers. Where do they meet? Who pays their wages? And how do they get their harebrained schemes into the statute books?

Honestly? I haven’t a clue. But I do know this. It’s very obvious that their new target is people who drink alcohol – ie, everyone over the age of eight.

Over the years we’ve been told that we can’t drive a car if we’ve had a wine and that we should avoid alcohol if we’re pregnant. But now they seem to be saying that all people must steer clear of all drinks always.

Having told young people that they must stop drinking while on a night out, in case they are stabbed or end up having sex with a pretty girl, they now say that older people, who think it’s acceptable to enjoy a bottle of wine with their supper, are clogging up hospital wards that could otherwise be used to treat injured foxes.

We are told that alcohol rots your liver, makes you impotent, gives you stomach ulcers and turns your skin into something that looks like a used condom’s handbag.

Only last week we were shown photographs of a stick-thin man with a massive stomach who had died at the age of 36 because he’d had too many sherry trifles.

The BBC says that if you drink too much your brain stem will break and you will die. The British government tells us that if a man drinks more than two small glasses of white wine a day he will catch chlamydia from the barmaid in the pub garden after closing time. Rubbish. If a man drinks two small glasses of white wine every day it’s the barman he needs to worry about.

Me? Well, what I love most of all is binge drinking. Really getting stuck in. Hosing back the cocktails until the room begins to swim and my legs seem to be on backwards.

It’s not just the recklessness and freedom that result when massive quantities of alcohol unlock the shackles. It’s the promise that in the morning you can share your pain with a bunch of other similarly afflicted friends.

Normal pain, such as an eye disease or toothache, is a lonely and solitary pursuit, but a group hangover is a problem shared and that seems to bring out the best in us. Like the blitz. Like when you’ve just stepped off a terrifying rollercoaster ride. Everyone’s in it together. And a problem shared is a problem pared.

Of course, the trouble these days is that the binge drinking that is necessary to produce collective hardship is a complete nono.

They say that if you go out and get blasted you’ll die in a puddle of blood and vomit down a back alley long before you get the chance to catch chlamydia from the barman, and that no one will come to your funeral.

Happily this is rubbish. I’ve just done a calculation and on holiday this year I drank 55 units of alcohol a day. I would start at 11 o’clock with a beer which, because it was hot, was like trying to irrigate East Anglia with a syringe. So I would have three more.

Then I would guzzle wine and mojitos throughout the afternoon, the evening and the night until I fell over somewhere and slept. Am I now dead? No. In fact, because I drank so much I was more relaxed, which means that I’m back at home now feeling fresher and more rested.

So there you have it. Serious binge drinking is not only a nice thing to do and jolly good fun, but also – and here’s something that you won’t get from the mongers of doom – it’s good for you, too.

The point of binge drinking is that you drink and then you stop drinking. And this is the key. The real problem is when you drink – and you keep on drinking. This is known as alcoholism and that, so far as I can tell, is the worst thing in the world.

There is nothing quite so pitiable and wretched as an alcoholic. I know plenty of people who take drugs, drive too fast and kill foxes. And they’re all good company. But honestly, I would rather do time in a Turkish prison than spend time with a drinker.

They ramble, they fall over, they think they are 10 times more interesting than is actually the case – and if they get the slightest inkling that you disapprove or are bored a great many become aggressive.

These are the people whom the busybodies should be concentrating on. Not with stern words and dire warnings, neither of which will make the slightest bit of difference, but with help and understanding and patience.

Seriously, by telling me that I’m an alcoholic because I binge drink on holiday and share a bottle of wine with my wife over supper every night is the same as persecuting everyone who breaks the speed limit.

We need to make a distinction between someone doing 32mph and someone doing 175mph.

And it’s the same story with child abuse. By telling me that I’m breaking the law every time I smack my children’s bottoms, you are taking the pressure off those who lock their kids in a broom cupboard and only let them out to go thieving.

My handy hint this morning, then, is simple. Leave the normal people who do normal things alone. Forget about the people who drink for fun and worry only about those who drink to live.

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