THE demonisation of drinkers continues with new guidelines on our weekly consumption of alcohol. Surprise, surprise, the limits have been reduced, rather than increased...

...with around 14 units now the "limit" for both men and women. 

Previously, men - the lucky blighters - were allowed to knock back 21 units before the health police got on their case. 

But of course, even this came with a caveat: that, in fact, there is no such thing as a "safe" amount of alcohol; the message being that anyone who allows so much as a thimbleful of sherry to pass their lips is dicing with death by actively encouraging cancer to come calling. 

There was precious little scientific backing for the original limits which were set some 20 years ago - the 14 and 21 units having been pretty much plucked out of the air (I know this from a scientist friend closely associated with that original panel of experts). 

And it seems to me to be a similar situation this time around. Why/how 14 units, rather than 10 or 15 or 20? And if, as we are being told, the merest whiff of alcohol increases our risk of cancer, why not a limit of 0? 

Local GP Dr Geoff Jolliffe welcomed the new limits last week, because heavy drinking is a serious problem in the Furness area, with some people drinking hundreds of units each week. 

He advised people to make incremental changes to their drinking - if you drink 200 units a week, cutting down to 150 would be sensible move, he said. 

Two hundred units a week? How on earth do people in an economically-deprived area such as this afford to get through the equivalent of 20 bottles of wine a week?

 I suppose it's all about that buzzword "awareness" but I am firmly on the side of "nanny state" haters, who think those of us who enjoy a tipple or three (or 14... or 40) each week should be jolly well left in peace. 

Those drinking in the hundreds are of course another matter altogether - and surely comprise a very small section of the adult drinking population. 

Accidents, atrocities and acts of God aside, one of three things is going to get us: cancer, heart disease or dementia. 

A doctor friend's sensible philosophy is this: look after your cardio-vascular system and the rest is pretty much down to luck. 

When my Dry January-forward-slash-February (thanks to yet another false start) comes to an end, I intend to resume enjoying my nightly wine, irrespective of the government's limit - and of the new two-alcohol-free-days-a-week diktat. 

I often have a few days a week when I don't partake - but that's my choice, not because someone on a government quango has said so. 

We Brits don't like being bossed around and questioned about how we spend our leisure time, so I doubt these new guidelines will in reality make a blind bit of difference to most people's drinking habits. 

Problem drinkers consuming gallons of alcohol a week are just that: problem drinkers. 

The vast majority of us, however, are not. We know our limits - the government does not.