Supercasinos in the UK

[centurion1]

So Manchester will get the big one, and other cities like Milton Keynes smaller ones.

Good as far as I am concerned. However, a lot of UK politicians are treating these casinos as the end of civilisation as we know it.

Even Conservative politicians, who should believe in the free market and the consumer's right to choose, are getting on the bandwagon.

As a Conservative myself, I am ashamed when politicians from the party I support, people who should believe in the free market, get all paternalistic...

Got that off my chest!!

[Simmo!]

Unfortunately, many people assume "gambling", like "alcohol", is a problem that society could do without. And I can see their point. But the fact is, like alcohol, it's here, has been for quite a few hundred years, and will be for a few hundred more until we all blow ourselves up.

The choice for a politician is A) accept it and ensure the public understand how to control it, B) brush it under the carpet and hope it will go away or C) fight it and hope it will go away.

On the generous assumption that politicians in the UK act as their constituents representative, it's only natural that there will be supporters and detractors in every political party. What a politician has to decide is, at what point do you stop allowing the public to make up their own minds? And then it becomes a whole new debate.