Despite all the late June headlines, the publication of the government’s NHS 10 Year Health Plan on 3 July, did not include any items on banning alcohol advertising.

The first instinct is that we should applaud industry for seeing off bad policymaking. Perhaps the more important question is why was this proposed policy even leaked to the press? Was it genuinely in contention for inclusion in this important document from the Department of Health?

If so, then just how the hell did we get here… again?

Since the early 2000s, the battle between public health and the alcohol sector has been increasingly fraught. The sceptre of “mad, bad legislation” as one former boss of mine called it, threatened to rear its head through the early 2010s. In 2012 we saw the Coalition government propose a new Alcohol Strategy, urging the implementation of Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP). Relentless lobbying followed demanding the restriction of labelling and advertising.

However, by the time we reached mid-2018, working as I did then in the corporate affairs team for a global wine company, I mused that perhaps this issue had drifted into a rather weak ‘win’ for the industry.

Aside from MUP legislation passing in Scotland, everything just felt well, quiet. People in drinks corporate affairs were being poached to go and work in a different industry, one that seemed in far greater need: the food industry, where the guns of media and government were being aimed.

In fact, I was one of those. I naively felt the ‘responsible drinking’ narrative was at the very least a fading need.

More fool I, as two years later I was back in the drinks industry and was utterly shocked at how much further the landscape had moved on into the anti-alcohol lobby’s direction. Remember January 2023’s infamous statement from the World Health Organisation: “No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health”. In 2024, the Scottish government to the surprise of no one increased its MUP level, just as everyone said they would. And now there are the leaks from government about potential advertising bans. To reiterate… how on earth did we find ourselves back here?

The double whammy of Brexit and Covid, almost inevitably, hove into view.

After Brexit, many legislative items and lobbying campaigns ground to a halt. It was a new game. But the so-called ‘tobacco-style’ playbook, has never gone away. It’s clear the health lobby has been biding its time, ready to pick it up again.

What of Covid? After the initial one-off sales boom across the industry, we are now seeing challenging commercial results reported by many companies, which has led to pressures on budgets.

And this has led to another problem. Corporations expect to see something in return for their political engagement work. And when there is such pressure on company P&Ls, work in this area will naturally slow down to a mild canter or even nothing.

But this leaves a vacuum. And in such a vacuum, those who shout loudest, no matter how ‘mad and bad’ their ideas, get heard by political stakeholders.

However brief the furore over an alcohol advertising ban was, it was a shot across the bows and needs to be taken seriously, as the health lobby will be back.

The UK back in 2018 was, arguably, a world-leader in alcohol consumer education, on responsible marketing and on-pack information. What led to this? The impact of the 2012 Responsibility Deal was significant. While its legacy is now maligned, it created real impetus for change amongst many previously disengaged UK companies. That impetus has slowed to nothing. We must get back on the front foot.