This is a really difficult issue and you are right to caution against ‘quick fixes’ as advocated by ahistorical NuLab. I think that taxation is unfair as it penalises moderate and sensible drinkers. This is a pleasure which should not be banned, though I do wonder about NHS money going to alcoholics (and other addicts), this seems an unfair way of using scarce resources.

There is no doubt that drinking is widespread across social classes, ages etc. There is no clear pattern to it, but those at the ‘bottom of the pile’ are more likely to be hanging around on buses and streets when drunk than more professional people who in my experience, are often equally enamoured with booze culture at weekends and after work. Similarly, many subsistence based tribes have been enamoured with drugs of various kinds aas have various elites throughout history. It is not enough to say it is caused by anything simple in a linear matter.

It is thus a cultural and as pointed out, possibly an evolutionary caused problem (if it even is one?) that will not be ’solved’ by simple laws or diktat. Hence, a compromise of clampdown on any drunken crime or severe rowdiness (particularly in residential areas), lack of funding for liver and other alcohol caused disease along with freer opening hours seems a fair compromise for society. (I share John’s doubt about the motives of the government in introducing 24 hour drinking which as far as I know is almost non-existent)

What they should have done, in the first instance, was put in place tough measures to tackle binge drinking, and build them into the Licensing process.

Only when establishments could demonstrate that they were effectively dealing with binge drinking, could they have their opening hours extended. These extended hours could then be rescinded if they slipped back in their efforts.

Instead, the Government wrongly assumed that continental-style opening hours would be a shortcut to a continental-style drinking culture.

That, for me is what binge drinking is about. Life for young people is mostly dreary and poorly paid, as I well remember. I binged, and now they binge. As Iain 24 Feb 2008 at 2:40 pm points out, above, it was ever thus in these parts. It’s about having a great time with your buddies after a suffocating day’s work.

Now that I can afford a decent wine I have found that I don’t much care for it, or for the etiolated company that comes with it. Let me instead have an occasional skinful with my old mates, where skinful = 8 pints of 3.5% proof, say. Then back to someone’s for a spliff or three, and talk and laugh until dawn or slumber claims us.

Note the absence of mayhem in the above scenario. It is important to note that one can enjoy an evening of Brahms and Lizt without becoming violent. The management of drunks should be elevated to the status of the management of football crowds. It’s something we might be good at.

Make being drunk and disorderly grimy and unpleasant and few people will want to do it on a regular basis. Moderate drinkers, or immoderate drinkers that do not upset the public, not affected.

Job done.

“If your sense of pleasure is to get plastered once or twice a week, only to have to suffer the after effects that night and the next day, then there is much missing in your life.”

Maybe, but it is still my decision if I choose to do so: it is certainly not the place of a politician to tell me how I should choose to live my life. Actually, that applies to all drugs, not just alcohol.

DK

Reply: I find listening to people teaches me a lot. Thanks for all the comments. I agree with you that too much drink is a problem in places on the continent as well - I was merely setting out the government’s sunny view of the Euro cafe culture.

On the other hand it is starting to soften us up, through proclamations by various pressure groups and on-side police chiefs, for increases in alcohol tax.

John, we come to the real reason for the extension of licensing hours - ultimately to create the climate for public acceptance of taxation that will lead to vastly increased money for government.

In Sainsbury’s the cheapest barely palatable wine is around £3 per bottle.
Yet in France, I can walk into a supermarket and buy a litre and a half of wine for 75p - wine ten times better tasting and ten times cheaper than that in Sainsbury’s.
And in most of France, outside the large conurbations, you will be lucky to get a “cafe culture” drink after 10pm.

So much for introducing “European cafe culture” by these drinking laws and increased taxation.
Follow the money.

The two big differences it has made to me are firstly, that I can buy alcohol from the supermarket after 11pm. When I used to work a 6pm til 10pm shift in a call centre as a student this made my life a lot easier. Secondly, when Australia were playing cricket at home I could enjoy a drink whilst I watched it in the local casino. Prior to the laws I could only buy drink until 2pm, then had to make do with coffee and coke until kicking out time at 6am.

The third major change is the establishment of the new local authority licensing bureaucracy. I’ve seen it first hand. In my experience the very people that lecture licensee’s about binge drinking are often to be found completely sauced at 2am on a Saturday morning, still in their work clothes from the afternoon before. The old system, the proverbial rubber stamp at the magistrates courts, must have been much cheaper.

All in all I’m in favour of flexible licensing hours and do not think that it has led to the kind of carnage that the scaremongering tabloids refer to. In my home town, when every establishment used to call last orders at 11pm, there would be a congregation of hundreds of people near the taxi rank and pizza shop. Fights would break out routinely, they became a spectator sport. In about 1998 the local council allowed late licensing (until 1am, then a year or so later 2am) amid much local opposition on the recommendatin of the police. All the trouble stopped immediately.

Licensed premises are managed premises and we should exploit this. We should allow youngsters to purchase and consume alcohol in a managed environment before we let them take it home.

Not many people know that 16 and 17 year-olds are allowed to drink wine, beer and cider with a table meal. It would be great if pubs encouraged family eating - and drinking, as a part of the general move to serve more and better food in pubs.

I would make off sales only available to people over 21. This would allow “Learner” drinkers to drink in managed premises but not to take it home. The additional expense of drinking in pubs would reduce consumption amongst the learners.

This should be accompanied by effective enforcement of licensees obligations to manage their premises such that they do not serve any one who is already intoxicated.

And we would have no other taxes

I am not sure you will like what you hear, for the establishment have been ashamed of our love of a drink for a millennium or more, yet at best their actions to curb it have been shown to be futile, worst their actions have added to the problem.

For example St Boniface in his letter to Cuthbert Archbishop of Canterbury in the 8th centaury

‘In your diocese the vice of drunkenness is too frequent . This is an evil particular to pagans and to our race . Neither the Franks, nor the Gauls, nor the Lombards, nor the Romans, nor the Greeks commit it.’

Now that could be word for word ( other than the nations have changed their names) what a politician could be heard saying today.

Then there’s what William of Malmesbury the 12th centaury historian wrote of the Anglo Saxons around the time of the Norman conquest…’Drinking in particular was a universal practice, in occupation they passed entire nights as well as days…They were accustomed to eat till they were surfeit, and drink till they were sick’

So does this… John of Salisbury wrote around the same time ….’the constant habit of drinking has made the English famous amongst all foreign nations.’

And it should be noted that drink was seen as so important that it merited some clauses in our founding constitutional document , the Magna Carta, to define the measures for beer and wines.

Its also worth noting the futility of our politicians actions…like the 1329 proclamation which made Taverns lock their doors at curfew, or the 1606 act of Parliament,( in fact there were 7 acts of Parliament between 1604-6 trying to curb our love of drink) the 1606 act starts ….

‘where as the loathsome sin of drunkenness is of late grown to common use in this realm, being root and foundation of many other enormous sins, as bloodshed, stabbing, murder, swearing, fornication, adultery, to the great dishonour to God and our nation….’

Now that’s almost word for word what a tabloid or politician would be saying today.

But more worryingly is what happens when politicians meddling make things worse like in the 17th centaury when during our spat with France they wanted to curb demand of brandy, and curb the power of the brewers, who were brewing beer. So duties on gin were slashed, while the duties on beer were increased, making gin cheaper than beer. With the result that a population one tenth the size of ours was necking ten times more gin, gin double the strength of ours. It was thought that one in four London houses were brewing and selling gin, and so were created the gin palaces.

Now does that resonate with today and the consequences of Labour’s polices to have 24hour drinking?

But I suppose there is one up side to this, but not if you are politician, for while the political class has been waging their futile millennium long war against our love of a drink , it could be said they haven’t had time to enact more damaging legislation elsewhere!

Reply: A great resume of our past in the spirit of this site with its reminders to practising Labour politicians that history did not start in 1997.

Fats, sugar, alcohol, probably drugs. We are thus evolved, in an era of plenty, to binge on them.

Believing that use of the price system is more effective, intrudes on freedom of choice less & is actually profitable I favour taxation over regulation. I would be happy to see alcohol taxes rising perhaps 5% faster than per capita GNP growth for the foreable future on condition that it was matched by equivalent reductions on other taxes.

I see that excise duty takes £41 billion annually & corporation tax £50 billion & Ireland has shown how much damage the latter does.

I agree with a previous correspondent that it is a foolish mistake to infantilise all young adults. My son was recently unable to purchase a pair of scissors for a school project. I had to go back to the stationery shop with him. The manager said they were unable to sell any knives, blades or solvent based glues to under 18’s and it was particularly difficult as most often it was these very products school pupils needed to purchase for GCSE & A-level coursework. I suggested it was overkill and he ought to turn a blind-eye, but he replied that trading standards had previously sent youngsters in undercover.

I ‘m sure this legislation must have fallen on the burgeoning statute book as part of a government ‘fighting knife crime’ headline grab. However, we now have a situation where a seventeen year old can drive a car and get married, but if they wanted to cut their hair or cook a meal with their, government recommended, five-a-day vegetables they’d have to get their parents to buy the tools required. Is it surprising people don’t behave responsibly and does anyone actually ever think these ludicrous laws through?

If a teenager was about to commit a knife crime, they would hardly buy a pair of scissors from a shop with CCTV when they could just take a knife from the kitchen drawer at home.

I predict we’ll soon all find it much harder and more expensive to buy a bottle of wine to drink with our meal whilst yobbish binge drinking continues unabated.