The Shofar is the ancient trumpet which called the people of God to prayer, repentance, sacrifice and war.

PRINCES' STAG NIGHT BINGE DRINK DISGRACE

21th April 2008

RAF bosses have been criticised for allowing Prince William to show off to his girlfriend Kate Middleton by landing a helicopter on her parent's land. They have defended the stunt as a 'training exercise'.

But it was the culmination of a previous helicopter jaunt that has seen Princes William and Harry criticised for setting an example of binge drinking just as one of the latest casualties has spoken out.

Last week the newspapers reported on the 'stag night' of Peter Phillips, tenth in line to the throne, in a public house on the Isle of Wight . Prince William, second in line, used a training run in an RAF helicopter to reach the event, picking up his brother in London on the way.

According to reports, the second in line to the throne downed 'pint after pint' and dropped his trousers to flash his boxer shorts during a drinking game in the Anchor pub in Cowes .

Meanwhile, Prince Harry spent much of the evening taking a funnel filled with beer around the pub, encouraging the bemused locals to drink it straight down their throats.

At one point, Prince Harry got into a drunken panic that Phillips was missing, and resorted to a foul-mouthed tirade across the packed house, yelling: "Where the f*** is the stag? We've lost the f****** stag." Phillips, 29, was later found slumped in a shop doorway.

Many comments on newspaper websites from the public were astonishingly congratulatory, with people saying the princes' drinking frenzy made them 'proud to be British'.

However, one paper, the Daily Mail, carried on the very same day a report headed 'The binge drinking girl who suffered liver failure at just 14'. Natasha Farnham started drinking heavily at the age of 12. Just two years later she had liver failure. She was drinking wine and alcopops, using her dinner money and cash stolen from her mother to buy it. She now has memory loss and is warning other youngsters of the dangers of binge-drinking.

The Mail, seemingly oblivious to the irony of carrying the story of the royal binge in the same edition, said, 'Her descent into a life of ruined health and petty crime illustrates the perils of cheap alcohol and the culture of binge-drinking that grips Britain .'

Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, said today:

'This isn't the first time the papers have carried reports of royal drunkenness. We talk of "noblesse oblige", the responsibility of those in the public eye to behave better than the rest of us and thereby to set a wholesome example. Of course with their fornicating and drinking, the royal princes are not the only people in public life dragging the rest of us down. Most newspapers have a page in which the drunkenness of self-destructing celebrities is reported day after depressing day.

'It is scarcely deniable that the cult of celebrity influences young people into thinking that getting drunk is a cool thing to do. Given that the Continent has nothing like our problems of drunkenness, blaming it on cheap drink and the supermarkets is too simplistic. The fact is, there is a death wish in our culture, and the Princes are not just part of that, but driving it. Before a Government minister rails against binge-drinking again, the Prime Minister ought to mention it in his weekly audience with the grandmother of two of the worst culprits.'

READ: Neh 9:34; Job 12:21; Psalm 118:9; Prov 31:3-5; Isa 34:12; Jer 51:57; Mark 10:23-24; Luke 8:14; Gal 5:19-23; Titus 2:6-8.