"The worth of a pint"

Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, steps down in May. For a retirement home he might consider the town of Rawtenstall, Lancashire, which boasts the UK's only surviving temperance bar. Mr Fitzpatrick's, on Bank Street, would be the ideal place for Sir Liam to meet Kevin Barron, chair of the health select committee, and Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, to sip pints of blackberry and raisin cordial and consider cures for the nation's drinking problem.