A LABOUR minister has admitted that new laws to encourage continental “cafe-style” drinking in British bars are doomed because we are a nation of Anglo-Saxon boozers, writes Isabel Oakeshott.

As pubs prepare for their biggest night of the year, Hazel Blears, Labour’s chairman, has weighed into the debate over the dangers of binge-drinking.

She claims that Britons — unlike our European neighbours — are incapable of leaving a bar after one drink because we like being inebriated.

She said: “I don’t know whether we’ll ever get to be in a European drinking culture, where you go out and have a single glass of wine. Maybe it’s our Anglo-Saxon mentality.

“We actually enjoy getting drunk. I think there is a bit about risk-taking — people want to push the limits of danger. So as a politician I don’t think there are any easy answers.”

Blears, whose own vice is a love of classic motorbikes and leathers, believes more should be done to educate people about the dangers of drinking.

Her comments — made in an interview with The Sunday Times — would appear to undercut claims by her cabinet colleagues that the 24-hour licensing laws would usher in a new drinking culture.

Ministers had hoped a continental approach to licensing hours would lead to more steady alcohol consumption and a reduction in bingeing.

Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, was widely reported to have said the move would encourage the civilised “cafe culture” that thrives in mainland Europe.

Tonight is the second New Year’s Eve under the liberalised licensing laws, under which thousands of outlets have been granted permission to stay open all night.

However, while conceding that the nation’s drinking culture may not have been changed, Blears defended the relaxation of the laws.

Blears, a former Home Office minister who was once responsible for tackling binge drinking, insists the laws have not had the catastrophic consequences predicted by some police and opposition politicians.

“The 24-hour drinking was supposed to be the end of life as we know it. That hasn’t happened,” she said.

But she added: “The health implications worry me. “People are getting quite serious health conditions earlier — things like liver problems in their twenties and thirties that perhaps before only came out in their forties and fifties.

“I think we’ve got to do more education now — that has to be the absolute priority.”

She said alcohol manufacturers and retailers also had a duty to market their products more responsibly. Last week a father reignited the debate about problem drinking among young people when he published harrowing hospital pictures of his young daughter in a coma brought on by binge drinking.

At the same time it emerged that almost one in four pubs and off-licences have sold alcohol to children in the past two years.

A government study carried out in the wake of the liberalisation of drinking laws found huge numbers of shops and bars have broken the law by serving under-18s.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Milk: do we need a dairy godmother?
• DIY: the women doing it for themselves
• First double portrait of Princes unveiled