Tonight:
9°c
The leafy square in Stockwell on which I live has a particular seasonal music, which starts up in spring and goes on till autumn.
I don't mean the songs of robins and blackbirds: I mean the carousing of drunks, who collect in the square on warm evenings, and yell and sing and fight till the early hours of the morning, while sober citizens, too nervous to go out and say anything to them, lie awake cursing.
Sir Liam Donaldson, the Government's Chief Medical Officer, is braver than me and my neighbours, for he has decided to confront the nation's inebriates. He wants the Government to discourage drunkenness by setting a minimum price on a unit of alcohol.
Britain has a nasty relationship with alcohol. Although we're drinking far more than we used to, we still don't drink all that much compared to our neighbours. The French and Italians put away far more than we do, and many more of them die of cirrhosis as a result. But we have a higher rate of alcohol-related violence than any other rich country except Australia.
That's why Sir Liam is right to try to intervene. It's not because alcohol is a growing public-health issue. People are welcome to drink themselves to death for all I care — though I resent having to pay for their liver transplants while they're still reaching for their next Bacardi and Coke. The reason the Government needs to do something is that drunkenness is spoiling this country: it's the reeling louts who ruin the evenings in my square; the weirdo with the can of Stella who I saw on Friday, yelling “Effing nigger” at a passer-by; and, most of all, the murders of blameless people who happened to be in the wrong pub at the wrong time.
Sir Liam's idea of getting rid of cheap booze is a reasonable one. Plenty of studies show that price affects how much people drink; and because incomes have risen faster than taxes, alcohol is much more affordable than it was 20 years ago. By targeting cheap alcohol, rather than nice Burgundy, this scheme targets not those who like a tipple but those who drink to get drunk.
Unfortunately, Sir Liam's idea seems to have fallen victim to Gordon Brown's unpopularity. Now that the Prime Minister can count the people on whose votes he can rely on the fingers of one hand, he is understandably wary of alienating any new section of the electorate — even the dregs reeling around on the nation's streets. He has therefore come out against Sir Liam's scheme, saying that he did not want to impose unnecessary burdens on “moderate” drinkers.
Sir Liam's critics (the Prime Minister and the drinks companies) complain that his scheme would discriminate against the young and the poor: being generally shorter of funds, they would find drink harder to afford. They are correct, of course; but that's just too bad. Getting sozzled on cheap cider isn't a fundamental human right; freedom from drunken violence is.
Feverish night for us oldies
Robert Webb, who won Let's Dance for Comic Relief, looked lovely in his leotard, but his performance paled against the one that nice neighbours organised in my square on Friday night in aid of Comic Relief. Fifty or so of us strutted our stuff to Saturday Night Fever, pointing at the moon and swinging our ample hips for all we were worth. I'm not sure which was funnier: our attempts at synchronised dancing, or the disgust on the faces of the watching teenagers.
The Vatican tests my patience
I TRY to respect other people's beliefs but sometimes they make it difficult. The Catholic Church has excommunicated Brazilian doctors who aborted the twin foetuses of a nine-year-old girl who had been raped by her stepfather. The abortion was carried out to save her life.
I was encouraged to hear that there has been some dissent in the Vatican about the excommunication, but the extent of this, it turns out, is that one archbishop has questioned the urgency and publicity with which it was announced. Very liberal of him.
Reader views (8)
The price of alcohol in most pubs is high enough as it is and any further increase will result in even more pubs closing. The number of pub closures since the introduction of the Smoking Ban is frightening, and far higher than in mainland Europe with their more liberal bans (or interpretation of the bans).
The problems are not caused by people drinking at standard pub prices. The main causes of the problem are:
1) People drinking vast amounts of alcohol at home before they even go out. Many of these are too drunk to get served in resposible pubs by the time they leave their homes.
2) Irresponsible cheap drink promotions. One of the quickest ways to get drunk is to drink shots, especially when you can get them for £1 or less. Happy hours also encourage people to drink too much, especially where there is a time limit for the reduced prices. All you can drink promotions are asking for trouble.
However, the biggest problem of the lot is that it is now socially acceptable to a large section of the population to go out and get absolutely hammered, Until this is changed, the problem will not go away.
- Andrew, London
Wow Hugh I think you need a drink mate. Things aren't that bad yet. What did you all expect from Labour? Name me an idea they've had in the last 5yrs that didn't involve raising tax in some form.
- Mark, London
Spot the odd one out.
a) I go through a red light, I get a £60 fine.
b) I over stay parking, I get an £80 fine.
c) Drunken louts go on the rampage, I have to pay extra for
my drink.
Offenders are the ones who should be punished. Electronic tag them and ban them from drinking alcohol.
- Tomfitz, Loughborough
The reason it can't be done, Emma, is because it contravenes an EU obligation. The European Court made a judgement on the Rosengren case in Sweden in 2007.
However, if we fined alcohol abusers several times more than the normal penalty for crimes aggravated by alcohol, or made them spend repeated evenings in special 'dry centres' instead of partying, that would soon put a stop to the mayhem.
OK you'd still get drunkenness at private parties, but at least public places could be enjoyed with a lot less fear of violence and broken glass.
- Brian, London
Emma
It is erroneous to believe that increasing alcohol prices will reduce violence and aggressive behavior stemming from excessive drinking. Think about prohibition for example, the attempt many years ago by the US federal government to ban alcohol, even under this policy people still got drink and drunk.
As you state in the opening of your piece, we the "Brits" are worse than other countries despite already drinking less; so why do you think that raising the price will do any good?
The causes are what we need to address, and a major cause is the increasing degree of disillusionment that is overwhelming people of all ages. People have nothing to look forward to in the UK, weather is miserable, our leaders lie, ambition is something few people have, our culture is obsessed with rich celebrities, sarcastic comedians, spend, spend, spend mentality yet deep down it is all nothing and people know this, look at how people today spend their leisure time, boozing.
It is shameful to see the degree to which people buy champagne here, as if they are millionaires, jet setters, when all they do is work in a pizza parlor.
Teens in college are seeing large scale immigration, collapse of our own culture and neighborhoods, a police force that is becoming impotent with armed thugs doing as they please and a job market that is more and more service focused, all in all we have and are failing to create a society that makes people happy and this is what you get.
- Hugh, Birmingham, UK
TAX TAX TAX - There is Labours manifesto.
This whole scenario has been created by a bankrupt government who are trying to raise revenue from any source at all. The tax ALREADY paid on alcohol by the low to moderate consumers is enough to pay the NHS bills for the few and stupid.
- Sally King, London
Why not just ban the stuff outright and be done with it? Who needs it?
- David, London
If people are making a nuisance of themselves there are laws to deal with it - you have to call the police and stay on their backs until they do something. Sweden and Finland have massive probelms with drink related illnesses and alcohol there is far, far more expensive than it is here. Why is the instant reaction to any problem just to slap more tax on it?
- Paul, London
