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 These extended hours could then be rescinded if they slipped back in their efforts.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.