Lying in bed, wide awake, in the early hours of new year's morning, I listened to the seven ages of drunkenness. First, the jovial, as wellwishers exchanged decent Edinburgh greetings with the decorum still required in this most civilised of cities. Then the merry, as small groups of carousers careered down the pavements, their high-decibel cries indeterminate but good-humoured. Shortly afterwards, the strident, as someone assayed the first tuneless chant of 2008, something between Auld Lang Syne and Leon Jackson, an experiment clearly in need of more rehearsal.
Then, the maudlin, a duet of weeping female recrimination, interrupted occasionally by a low male monotone that seemed to be having little effect. Things deteriorated around 3am with a shouting match, rich in expletives, and the sudden sound of running feet. Finally, the real thing, a fight, a scuffle. And then, the denouement, the sound of a police siren, more running feet, the fading sound of threat and rancour. The rest is silence.
So, nothing new here. I looked back at Robert Louis Stevenson's account of New Year's Day in Edinburgh 120 years ago, and found it instantly familiar: “From an early hour a stranger will be impressed by the number of drunken men; and by afternoon the drunkenness has spread to the women. With some classes of society, it is as much a matter of duty to drink hard on New Year's Day as to go to church on a Sunday. Some have been saving their wages for perhaps a month to do the season honour... The streets, which are thronged from end to end, become a place for delicate pilotage. Singly or arm-in-arm, some speechless, others noisy and quarrelsome, the votaries of the new year go meandering in and out and cannoning one against the other; and now and again, one falls, and lies as he has fallen.”
There is one difference, however. RLS's new year excesses are now a weekend ritual in Britain's towns and cities, the cannoning and the falling down supplemented by the fights and the broken bottles and the loutish assaults that make this country an object of shame and ridicule. Far from attempting to curb these excesses, the Government has seemed intent on encouraging them, allowing 24-hour drinking, cheap alcohol and the widespread advertising of liquor, some of it clearly aimed at the young.
Today []The Times reports that the Prime Minister's review of 24-hour drinking laws has pulled back from any notion of abolishing them.[] There is, apparently, no clear correlation between the new continental-style regulations and increased crime in or around pubs. Or rather, there has been an increase in crime, but the evidence linking it to opening hours is unclear. Instead there will be some moves to enforce the law against selling alcohol to minors, and an attempt to tackle binge drinking.
It's a tall order. Binge drinking is now a national addiction — and one that is not only tolerated but encouraged. What RLS would have been thunderstruck by is the way that the Victorian hostility to alcoholic excess (however often violated) has been replaced by a celebration of the inebriated state. A generation weaned on the baby-boomer tendencies of the Sixties and Seventies now demands a skinful as its right and regards the process of becoming regularly “blootered” not as an occupational hazard, but as a regular objective. The horrors of drunkenness, which most of us learn through stomach-heaving experience, are embraced as a way of life.
They are also, of course, a way of death, most commonly in the home, where domestic violence, fuelled by alcohol, is on the increase, and where children, younger and younger, are learning from their parents that drinking spirits, whether in the form of alcopops, cheap vodka, or Buckfast, a tonic wine produced by monks in Devon and drunk on the streets of Glasgow, is a rite of passage.
How, then, do you tackle this deep-seated, if recently acquired, devotion to strong drink? Richard Brunstrom, the Chief Constable of North Wales, believes that one way is to place alcohol in the same category as drugs and tackle it as a danger to society. In the course of it, he notes the yawning gap between our attitudes to drugs, which are illegal, and alcohol and tobacco, which are not. In Scotland, for instance, 13,000 people died from tobacco-related use in 2004 while 2,052 died as a result of alcohol. Illegal drugs, meanwhile, accounted for only 356 deaths — yet the maximum penalty for possessing a Class A drug is 14 years in prison while supplying it carries a life term.
Mr Brunstrom's views are controversial because he advocates legalising drugs. But he is consistent in pointing out that we should judge them and all other addictive substances on the basis of how much they harm society and what the best way is of reducing their use.
There is a solution. It is long-term, fraught with obstacles, and a severe challenge to the national revenue, but it is achievable: to change the national culture and social attitudes in the same way as happened with tobacco. Most big cities have now banned smoking in public places (Berlin and Paris are the latest recruits); duty on tobacco has soared; every packet of cigarettes carries a lurid health warning. The same could happen with alcohol which, down the years, has escaped punitive tax and is now almost ludicrously cheap. Under the new regime, drink would become more expensive, licences would be punitively hard to get, and pubs would be barred from alcohol promotion, and would revert to becoming drinking dens, rather than places of entertainment. Most important of all, society would be encouraged to turn its back on heavy drinking, just as it now frowns on smoking.
If this sounds heavy-handed and Victorian, then so be it. It may not do much for this generation, but there is another coming along which deserves our protection, and the Victorians knew all about that. Perhaps we should relearn the old music-hall lament that ran: “Don't sell no more drink to my father/ It makes him so strange and so wild./ Don't sell no more drink to my father,/ But pity a poor orphan child.”
Unlike cigarettes and drugs, alcohol is easily made at home. Raising its price or forbidding its sale will achieve little beyond exposing people to the dangers of illicitly-made hootch. After all, prohibition was an unmitigated failure in the USA.
But tv channels, billboards and print media (including the Times) awash with advertisements portraying drinkers as youthful, sophisticated and sexy are certainly not helping the situation. Advertising restrictions, or a full ban on alcohol advertising, must be the first step to curing this nation of its culture of alcoholism.
Andrew, Cardiff, Wales
This is not a wholly British problem, go to Norway, Sweden or Finland and you will see the same thing
Don't be so down on the Brits...this is a Northern European issue
billy , Cardiff, Wales
A ban is not the solution but control is! Reduce the amount of sweet "easy to drink" beverages, introduce harsher penalties for alcohol related public disorder, increase tax, publiscise health impacts - We have all seen a smokers lung, but who a binge drinkers liver??
This binge brinking culture is destroying British society, its devistating the family unit, harming innocent bystanders, ruining our cities and to be frank making saying "I'm British" an embarresment!!
It's a British problem jeared at by the rest of the world - Why is that?? If we are truely a land of the free - why are we slaves to social acceptance and the "but everyone does it" excuse??
The truth is that the weak willed and scared need a crux to devote too. Religion has failed, politics and class has failed, health and fitness has failed - so lets self destruct!! Bottoms up folks!
David, Cardiff, Wales
I couldn't agree more about adopting a Victorian attitude to alcohol. In fact, I think binge drinking in public should be made such a shameful and embarrassing act that, like drink driving, it will hopefully be considerably reduced over a generation or so. Of course, it's easy to say it but difficult to achieve it but it would be a good start if the message was rammed home to school kids in the same way that the dangers of smoking is, that drinking to excess is revolting, harmful and liable to lead one into personal danger.
Like tobacco, alcohol needs to be taxed to the hilt. It's way too cheap and far too available - not just in bars but in corner shops.
The rest is up to the individual after that.
One final word, not all of the UK is like that and not everyone who lives here binge drinks. Most people don't - it;s just a noisy minority
Maria, London, UK
When you ban something or make it illegal- then young people feel the need to rebel against it to appear macho.
That is human nature- so stop making laws telling people what they can and cannot eat and drink.
Then just like France and Spain- where children are welcome in pubs etc- we would not have them feeling discriminated against.
When I came to live here- I was appauled to see.
NO DOGS OR CHILDREN ALLOWED.!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lilith Barrett, London, UK
My only comment on this article is: Do you remember the impact of prohibition in the US in the earlier part of the 20th century?
The reality is that some people will abuse drugs, alcohol and tobacco regardless of how difficult/expensive it is to get. Prohibition --in the form of more difficult access, higher taxes and or criminalisation-- will only create a black market that finances international criminal networks, wars and terrorism.
If not convinced, then look at the impact of drug prohibition in countries like Colombia and Afghanistan, and closer to home in our overcrowded prison system. All we need is to add drunks to the huge number of people already in prison due to drug related offences.
Education, treatment and social upward mobility are the answers to substance abuse, not more prohibition.
J, Colombia,
It's not "cheap" alcohol that's the problem (if it were, France, Spain, Italy et al would be littered with native binge drinkers); it's the Anglo-Saxon inability to drink responsibly. Continental-style drinking hours will not overnight result in Continental-style attitudes to alcohol. Alcopops are pernicious; they are targetted at younger consumers and encourage drinking to excess. Gin shops were closed down and licensing hours restricted to curb public drunkenness (and improve safety for munitions workers in WW1) - to a large extent such measures worked.
Andy, Whitchurch,
The root cause of the British attitude to alcohol, as with its attitude to sex and public behaviour amongst other things, is immaturity. The British in general seem increasingly incapable of getting beyond the slobbish stage of early adolescence. They need to grow up.
Johannes, London, England
It is a pity Magnus spoiled a good article by reminiscing about Victorian fathers, who are totally irrelevant to life today. They lived in grinding poverty, working in conditions which would not be tolerated today. Gin was extremely cheap and was used to deaden the pain. Children were well disciplined. It was only the men who made a public spectacle of themselves. Now we are all comparatively wealthy and life is soft. Children are spoiled and out of control. As a pensioner, I find good quality ales, wines and spirits are already hard to afford. Respectable older drinkers must not be penalised for the failure of parenting since the seventies when society withdrew support from all measures of discipline. How do you put a teenager on the naughty step?
Nigel MacNicol, Oakham, Rutland, UK
It isn't the law that is at fault, it is the society. I live in France where alcohol is infinately cheaper than in the UK. Most people are not rolling around the street most of the time. Yes of course some people abuse alcohol but the majority do not. There is no culture of binge drinking in France, simple as that.
Bob Taylor, Castelnau, France
I enjoy drinking red wine, and occasionally being a bit drunk, and yet I can do this without-
Being sick in the street
Fighting
Abusing Policemen
Assualting Mini-cab drivers
Ending up in A&E
Being verbally offensive.
Everyone can get a bit puritanical about alcohol, but the reason that this comes up at all is because as with most other social problems, some people possess self-control, and some don't. I don't think it is fair that I should be impeded from doing something I enjoy just because many idiots can't control themselves.
SJ, London, UK
Magnus has finally said what needs to be said: booze is turning Britain into a drunk and boorish country.
I had planned to spend a few years in Britain, but quickly returned after being appalled by the culture of drunkenness. So if you want to kick all immigrants out, getting plastered is one of the ways to guarantee it! The streets, the tubes, the trains - are all menacing places, even if no crime is committed.
It was a big learning experience - I expected the polite Britain of PG Wodehouse, and got football hooligans instead. Make no mistake: it's not the oft-touted tiny minority. It's the whole country.
PK, Delhi, India
Brown should visit a cemetary in a working class area and look at some of the ages on the newer graves. One by product of the new continental drinking hours and cheap booze is the premature death of many working class men who were thrown on to the scrap heap of unemployment in their early 40s. In my home town which is a former mining town one of the pubs opens before 9 each morning. A club was recently selling beer at 75p a pint. Men are encouraged by the same club to drink more beer in orderto qulify for free pints at Christmas! The grandchildren are on drugs and the grandfathers are on the Strongbow. Why Strongbow? It is simply because it is cheap. The founding fathers of the Labour Party would be ashamed of what has been created by their successors. What did Keir Hardie say about socialism and drink not mixing? Get a grip Mr. Brown and see the reality of the Fantasy Island that has been created in the last 10 years.
John, Maesteg,
Tony Blair cuddling up to drinks companies did the damage.
It was utter madness extending drinking hours, the man did it against all advice in his usual arrogant manner.
Young people going out to get 'plastered ' seem to have no pride in themselves , girls spend vast sums of money on their appearance & hours getting ready for a night out & then end up in the gutter !
Where we used to have a glass of wine they swig at a bottle.
Even drinking beer straight from the bottle is an ugly sight when did it all start ?
I am firmly against the nanny state but this is one area where something radical has to be done to cut the cost & save lives.
We could start by billing these drunks, in the cold light of day hand them a substantial bill for the treatment they have received & a fine for clearing them off the streets.
I see no alternative .
Making them pay will soon reduce the amount of money they have for their next binge.
It is totally unfair to expect the law abiding citizen to pay for it.
maggie Millington, Brittany, France.
My suggestions:
Make all drugs legal,
Nationalize the alcohol and tobacco industries.
Drugs should be sold along with liquor and tobacco in unglamorous state run shops in unglamorous packeging. No advertising of course.
Wine growers and pubs should remain independent but they must sell food.
In this way the dead hand of a state run business with its inbuilt inefficiency should reduce the effectiveness of its activities and the profits (if any) would go straight into the State’s coffers.
Peter Kaldor, Woking, u.k.
Magnus, you state that drink is 'ridiculously cheap' but this is not the case. At nearly £4 per pint in some London pubs, I for one do not agree.
However, supermarkets do sell drink very cheaply and one has to wonder if this government (and I suspect the one that's due to come in after it) want's to keep us all drunk, at home and not communicating as a society. We then wake from our drunken stupors, go to work and are filmed by CCTV cameras, return home and watch the 'reality' shows on the TV whilst getting plastered.
What if people actually spoke to each other in pubs about the things that matter instead of how big a certain celebs boobs are? I see lots of ex-pats that feel they have the right to comment on how bad this country is. Well, you have no right. You left, get on with it in your new, adopted country. It's my country and I want change.
Jonny, London, UK
10 years ago things were very different. Back then, nightclubs were full of ecstasy and cannabis and the brewers were worried.
Then came the fight against the drugs culture, door searches and the like stamped out the rave culture and in its place we had the "night time economy" and "the leisure industry" - "drug free" nightclubs where designer vodka mix drinks were sold with drug speak. It worked, clubbers on the whole switched from illegal drugs to binge drinking.
It's been an own goal, from frying pan to fire. Everything about our drugs policy (including booze) needs looking at again.
Brunstrom is right about drugs, we need to properly control and regulate their trade, but we also need to change our attitude to alcohol, the first move being to stop all advertising and designer packaging. As suggested above, pubs should be places to go for a drink, not entertainmemt venues.
We've got a long way to go for sure.
Derek Williams, Norwich, UK
Thank you Magnus for a good piece on perhaps the number one threat to national health and general well being. Those banging on about the 'cafe culture' in Europe are missing the point. We have a major problem and our history shows that as a nation and people we will abuse drink given the option. The quote from RLS was very good on this. A study of why we needed to introduce licensing controls on drink during the First World War, the Welsh Temperance movement or the work of the Salvation Army.
Looking at why others can drink 'normally' and assuming therefore that so can we is one of life's great bear traps. One might as well ponder that because Alex Ferguson is a great football manager that any professional football player will make a good manager. Life tells us different.
I grew up in the sixties in South West Scotland and saw in my own family the misery that excessive drinking causes - the mortality statistics are but the tip if the iceberg.
Lets have more control
James, Sidmouth, Devon
I believe that there is another issue here that has been overlooked, that of punishment for this behaviour. If my son ever gets himself into that state, I will punish him. In my view, if you are so irresponsible to allow, or indeed deliberately get yourself in to such a condition that you throw yourself on to the mercies of the State services - Police or Ambulance, you have renounced your rights to self- determination. If being picked up drunk was going to cost you three days in a custodial environment with no right of early release, no claim for loss of earnings, no visits - only telephone contact and infuriating inconvenience, then you might be more careful. Leaving Casualty the next morning with no bill and no consequences, just a good story to tell in the pub later, is no deterrent. Three days in the next bed to the local tramp, having to ring work to say that you can't come in for the next few days, then ring your parents and friends, well, nobody's going to be laughing then.
Adrian Leahy, Wigan,
I am sure that when I lived in California in the 80's retailers of alcohol were supervised / controlled by the Alcohol Enforcement Board.
This body could (with no right of appeal) fine the server, and the manager of an establishment $500 each if an underage, or drunken person was served, and also order the closure of the establishment for 24 hours.
A repeat offence led to a doubling of the fines and the closure of the establishment for 48 hours - no one had ever found what the penalty was for a 3rd offence.
Maybe such a system of penalties is the way ahead?
glenn ex-pat, Auckland, NZ
We need only look at the three young girls on the front page to remind ourselves of how cheap and unsophisticated binge drinkers look.
R. Ince, Istanbul, Turkey
I come from a country where if not 24 hour drinking is allowed regulation is minimal. Government does not get involved really unless its Sunday opening hours.
Beer can and is bought anywhere anytime and any coffee shop sells it.
Yes there is drunkeness but not to the same extend and largely confined to a certain class of person.
Treat people as adults and they will behave as such.
Richard, London,
Well, I suppose we could become like Norway where alcohol - legitimate alcohol that is - is prohibitively expensive and police stations have special storage facilities for confiscated private stills ! A significant number of people die from drinking wood alcohol annually. Not, perhaps the best way to go......
More effective would be an increased police presence on the streets and immediate arrest of anyone clearly the worse for drink. A night in cells and a court appearance next day would be more effective I believe. Probably not populat with the police though...
C J Murdoch, Canterbury, UK
Whatever happened to drinking in cozy pubs, a game of friendly darts, or the recommended pint of Guinness a day to fortify the blood?
My illusions about Great Britain as a nation of lucid pub dwellers are crushed. Guess a drink after work to commemorate you ribald sotters is in order...
Sorry, couldn't resist. 24 hour drinking does seem to be a bit much. Bars in the US usually are closed by 2:00. It's tragic but it does keep people off the streets.
Go home you buffoons... Allow Mr. Linklater some sleep.
Elan Durham, Santa Monica, CA/USA
Look at some of our southern neighbours. All the southern countries like Spain, Italy, Greece, or even France have cheap alcohol and long hours for their bars/clubs, yet they don't have, even close, the same problems we have with inebriated people. I believe it is, as much as with everything else, a matter of education. Our youth should learn that being highly intoxicated is not something to be proud, quite the contrary. Thats where the state enters, not by strict law-creation, but through education and example.
George, london,
Yet again someone writes about "the government allowing 24 hour drinking". This is rather a strange notion as someone can drink for 24 hours as long as somewhere was open for a couple of hours to stock enough alcohol up. Or is he one of those who seems to think pubs are now open for 24 hours? If so most people would be interested to know where these places are as in most people's experience over 90% of pubs are open for a maximum of 13 hours. It isiIn fact the stupid Victorian notion of drinking dens with restricted hours is what has engrained the whole male dominated, knocking as much back as possible in the shortest possible time culture we have in this country. Why don't the other northern countries like Germany, Holland, Belgium etc. where they have had bars open for longer than ourselves for decades and have used bars as a place of entertainment have these problems? The most alcohol consumed in the USA was during prohibition and the USSR with no public bars had horrendous problem
James Buckingham, York,
If you expect laws to govern peoples' behavior, you must yourself be drunk.
If you want to protect the coming generation, be sober and teach the young by example what it is to be clear-headed.
Virginia Vilas, New York, NY