´óÏó´«Ã½

Maybe we wouldn't feel the need to get quite so drunk if we didn't have to forget all the insulting elitist tripe that spews forth from politicians throughout the rest of the week.

Or maybe if we didn't have to pay for the privilege of being told "You're not rich enough to drink sensibly, so we're pricing you out of the market."

Mr Robinson is becoming a ferreting nuisance, who asks tiresome inconvenient questions: good for him!

I wish that beneficiaries of the TellyTax would stick to the job they are paid for,not get the idea that they are entitled to abuse their privileged access to taxpayer provided facilities.

More specifically, Robinsons Rant about binge drinking is nonsense.

25 years ago I lived in Brentwood. You would not dare get on a train from the City late at night for drunken traders "celebrating".

Nor do I know of a single pub outside large town cenntres which would serve one in the early hours apart from New Year.

Years ago, in Ireland at the races, the police used to request pubs to stay open after hours:- that way they avoided having louts dispersed over town and could respond quickly to drunken fights (usually between media folk, I understand....)

Identifying the yawning gap between ministerial rhetoric and street reality..??
Nick - you're getting cynical in your old age..!!

Anyone would think there was no drunkeness, violence , throwing up or mooning before the relaxation of opening hours. The reality is that little has changed. Very few bars(and none where I live) have 24hour licences. Some have extended til midnight or 1am on Fridays and Staurdays. As a regular weekend drinker I can honestly say the current arrangement is much better than the old 10:45 crush at the bar followed by the 11:15 'battle' in the kebab/burger queue, followed by the fight over who's taxi has arrived. I rarely stay til closing time but when I have its a relaxed affair compared to the old 'last orders' regime. Well done to the government, its a small step, but one worth taking. It was never going to eliminate binge drinking or alcohol fueled violence, but the causes of these things go much deeper than the hours of opening.

It's what we have come to expect from this Labour government.

It basically works like this:

If the people like what you have said, keep saying it.
If the people don't like what you have said, implement it and blame the opposition.

What Mr Robinson and his ilk in the Daily Mail seem to be ignoring is that most of the problems witnessed as the yobs make for home start well before they reach their chosen pub or club. It's the supermarkets and other off-licences who offload booze and alcopops at below cost-rice who are being irresponsible, rather than the often downtrodden pub licensee. He or she provides an useful community service, serving alcohol in strictly controlled circumstances, yet finds himself or herself blamed for the negligence of others who sell their wares and immediately wash their hands of any aftermath.

Anyone would think there was no drunkeness, violence , throwing up or mooning before the relaxation of opening hours. The reality is that little has changed. Very few bars(and none where I live) have 24hour licences. Some have extended til midnight or 1am on Fridays and Staurdays. As a regular weekend drinker I can honestly say the current arrangement is much better than the old 10:45 crush at the bar followed by the 11:15 'battle' in the kebab/burger queue, followed by the fight over who's taxi has arrived. I rarely stay til closing time but when I have its a relaxed affair compared to the old 'last orders' regime. Well done to the government, its a small step, but one worth taking. It was never going to eliminate binge drinking or alcohol fueled violence, but the causes of these things go much deeper than the hours of opening.

It's what we have come to expect from this Labour government.

It basically works like this:

If the people like what you have said, keep saying it.
If the people don't like what you have said, implement it and blame the opposition.

I don't suppose anyone has considered dealing with violent drunks harshly?

The problem lies not in the licensing or the sale laws. We can legislate to our hearts' content without effect.

Until the British learn to handle their drink and know when to stop, then it is pretty fruitless.

A visit to various continental countries will show how cultural disapproval of public drunkeness acts as a brake on binge drinking. Then again, our European cousins also have the image of British tourists lying in the gutter as an object lesson in what happens when you go too far...

No Nick, David Cameron does not support "the slurring, puking and mooning too?". Why not quote some right wing press for once?

It's what we have come to expect from this Labour government.

It basically works like this:

If the people like what you have said, keep saying it.
If the people don't like what you have said, implement it and blame the opposition.

Is Nick suggesting that somehow the "slurring, puking and mooning" would somehow be lessened if all pubs turned out at the same time? Or was this just an excuse for a cheap jibe at Cameron to try to rebalance an article that otherwise might have come dangerously close to telling criticism of the "culture of broken promises" that is New Labour?

Oh, for heaven's sake! None of these sticking-plaster measures will ever work. The only answer (adopted by Scandinavian countries, I believe) is to restrict the number of outlets so people can't get at the stuff so easily.

I live in Glasgow. Years ago, I tiredly thought that the best thing for the city would be to close two-thirds of the pubs. At first, I thought I was being nieve. Now I think I was right. In fact now I wish they'd close 75% of them!

The easy way to stop binge drinking is for the local police to enforce the law as it stands. The licensee is responsible for their own customers and if they are drunk then they are legally bound, as part of thier licence, to refuse to serve them. If the local lincense commitees started to remove the licenses, of irresponsible landlords, then the problem would very quickly disappear. As each iresponsible landlord was closed down the rest would very quickly put thier own house in order. Most pub owners are there to make money which is probably part of the problem, so threaten to take away their livelyhood and then they will think very carefully about how they conduct their busnesses.
No need for any more gimmicky new initiatives, just enforcement of the laws thet already excist today. Drug enforcement targets the pushers and not the user, binge drinking is exactly the same.
24 hour drinking is not the problem. The problem is people getting to much to drink. STOP THE DRINKING, STOP THE PROBLEM!!!!

The "continental cafe" culture will not happen until we have continental style cafes, where people sit at tables and are served by waiters, thereby slowing down the drinking process. When you can stand at a bar and tip pint after pint in succession down your throat, you are not going to get sensible drinking.

I think there needs to be a bit of common sense applied to licensing with more emphasis being put on licensees not to serve people who are obviously drunk. This is the case in Australia where bar staff have to undergo proper training and will regularly refuse to serve those who appear intoxicated. I have only ever seen this happen once in the UK. Sure it will take a change in drinking culture but in this day and age where we are all meant to be more socially responsible then so do bar staff.

I think on the whole the alcohol producers are responsible all advertising follows a consistent line about drinking aware. The problem is the route to market and very heavy discounting that goes on. In my time as a student the rule was cheap lager is weak lager however nowadays you can pick up strong continental lager for a pittance. Interestingly the monks of buckfast whose tonic wine was blamed for a lot of binge drinking in Glasgow have always refused permmission for it to be price promotted by retailers.

Can anyone remember the words to that song in 1997 so widely used by New Improved Labour during the election? I can only think of some of the title, was it "When things can only get better" or is it "If things......"?

Increasing the price of booze would increase inflation.

Why should I pay more for booze if I consume it at home and do no one any harm?

If the issue with specific people, why not police them better?

All kids under 18 with drink on the street, should be fined, or their parents fined. If they persist, the fines need to increase until people realise they cant run around causing trouble to innocent people.

So you have extra policing, a cost to the government, against a tax that will increase revenue for the government, but the problem wont go away.

Ministers have certainly not spoken to those on the front line in city centres on Friday/Saturday nights before declaring 24-hour drinking a success.
Paramedics and police officers are picking up the pieces, being assaulted and abused by people who are so legless that they are no longer in control of their actions. Then A and E departments are bursting at the seems with rolling drunks all through the night.
If politicians really want to know what impact the drinking laws are having, they should have a read of A Paramedic's Diary: Life and Death on the Streets, by a London paramedic, Stuart Gray, or the brilliant Diary of an On-Call Girl: True Stories from the Front Line, by a female copper who writes under the name WPC EE Bloggs.

The trouble is the Government doesn't want us to stop, or even curb, our drinking - it's too dependant on the taxes it raises through duty & vat on alcohol sales.

Therefore Ministers comments on binge drinking, cheap supermarket beer etc., etc. are vacuous at best.

All they are doing is softening us up for greater rises in duty on beers, wine & spirits - which in turn adds to inflation, which prevents the Bank of England from cutting interest rates - why are we run by a Government of morons??

Unfortunately there has been a misconception over cause and effect. Some clever bugger assumed that Europe has developed a civilised evening cafe/bar culture going late into the evening because they have relaxed licensing laws. Actually, it's the other way round.

Surely there's been more action than this? I saw a sign that went up not far from my home - words to the effect that it's an "alcohol exclusion zone" in which it's an offense to carry a can of lager about. Though, come to think of it, I haven't seen anybody actually trying to enforce that. Maybe it's like these designated crime-stoppers' zones (we've got one of those too) in which a little cardboard notice does its best to police the area.

Looks like the pushers are winning the poster war - all over the university campus we see adverts for "happy hours" put there by the pubs. Legal or not, they're still putting them up, though they've taken to fitting them round lamp-posts instead of directly stapling them to trees.

Whatever happened to the simple arrest for disturbing the peace? Did some idiot repeal that, or are the police scared to use it for some reason?

As usual the Government comes out with meaningless rhetoric which in any event deals only with the symptoms. The question we need to ask is 'Why do we have this problem'.

It ain't easy, but I suggest at least part of the answer is the breakdown of the family. Too often membership of a gang or group replaces membership of a family, but without the guidance and mentoring which the parents and grandparents should give.

And now many 'families' are headed by parents who themselves were raised in situations without parental guidance and have no or little concept of parental responsibility beyond the financial means to buy the latest fashions and gadgets.

If we are serious about tackling drinking as both a health risk and anti-social behaviour then we should look west to Canada and specifically British Columbia.

There you cannot buy more than 2 drinks in a row without ordering food, you cannot order another round until you have finished your current drink and off licenses question you if you buy any more than 12 cans of beer.

It feels wierd initially, but it makes for a very civilised night out where people are enjoying a sensible amount without ending up losing control.

I heard a minister talking about this on the radio this morning - and the key phrase he used was 'working with industry'.

This seems to be becoming a key ministerial phrase at the moment - what I think it means is that "vested interests don't support what we're doing and have found a way round our regulations - so now we are racking our brains trying to decide what on earth we can do about it"

Nick, as far as drinking goes, nothing is happening now that wasn't happening 20, 200 and quite possibly 2000 years ago. What has changed is the new secular puritanism of politicians and pundits. They say: prohibitions work. They didn't, they don't, they won't.

Since any form of political ideology is now absent, what we seek is nothing more than competent government. This, too, is sadly lacking with this current government who are willing to jettison even commonsense when reviewing their own hapless policies. Anyone with half a brain knew three years ago that extended drinking hours would inevitably exacerbate the binge-drinking culture. All except New Labour, that is. What a shower!

I have a theory that binge drinking is partly down to the British sense of fair play and politeness. Let me explain:

There are two common models for a group of people on a night out, The Rounds model and The Kitty model. Both lead to the group drinking at the pace of whoever is fastest during the night.

In the Rounds model each member of the group takes it in turn to buy a round of drinks. Each round tends to be bought at the time the first person finishes their drink. Most people want to pay their share so inevitably some will buy their round before they're ready. Most people also want to get their money's worth so tend not to refuse when it's someone else's turn.

In the kitty model everyone puts money in the kitty upfront. This removes the pressure to buy a drink before you want one but, of course, it's difficult to refuse when someone else goes to the bar with the kitty especially as that would leave you feeling as though you are subsidising other's drinking.

The best model to avoid over drinking is the I'll buy my own model. As the name suggests everyone buys their own drinks when they're ready. This rarely works as people don't want to appear tight.

Perhaps the solution is for it to be made illegal to sell more than x drinks to one person at a time. This would at least lead to smaller rounds where a social group could reorganise into sub-groups with roughly the same drinking speed.

There will always be a problem with binge drinking until society adopts a drinking responsibly culture. Look at European countries where growing up and having alcohol with a meal is a way of life. There are many fewer problems there. Whilst we may think that alcohol is good in moderation it is a nonsense to set limits on it which makes it exciting for young people to try and beat the age limit. In America, where the limit was raised to 21, drinking is a serious problem for teens, leading to higher incidence of rapes and crimes and alcoholism. We should learn from that experience.

Isn't about time politicians stopped blaming cashiers on minimum wage for the problem and started to accept responsibility for their enabling behaviour and example.

It's not just central government that adopt this laisser faire approach to implementing significant new regulations and plans.....what has your local council achieved recently? Having said that it's interesting to note the speed at which new taxes are introduced, my glass of Red Wine may not runneth over quite as much in future!

It's nothing to do with the hours, the problem is a cultural one. The English like a drink, pure and simple; and sadly, because cheap booze is available in the supermarkets, the irresponsible few, as always, make it bad for the rest of us who drink sensibly. Reverting back to the old hours would be pointless or, indeed, making any changes, as anybody can drink at any time thanks to the supermarkets and off licences. One of the big problems, however, is the current UK 'role models' for young people. I'm talking of Pete Doherty, Amy Winehouse and, to a degree, Kate Moss and others, all of whom make excess 'cool'.

Pause just for a second to remember the gap between journalism and truth, rhetoric and reality.

Does anyone know how many hours the subsidised bar in the House is open for? And if you had a few toots then went to the Parliment Gym would you have a breath test. By the way this £160 to sign in for work (used to be called an attendance allowance) would keep me in booze for six months or more.
It must be so tiresome to be an MP, always being scrutinised, dustbins checked etc. Wonder if that is where they got the idea to meter wheelie bin output from?

Nick is so right, yet again. Why can we not get politicians with the same grasp of reality that most journalists have?

I am fed up with "initiatives" and schemes that promise much but deliver little or nothing. The simple answers to binge-drinking are:
for the police and local councils to implement existing law more fully, and
for parents, the media and the education system to consistently promote a commonsense approach to acceptable behaviour, whether alcohol consumption, dropping litter or driving sensibly.

Personally, I fully agree with the comments of the Weatherspoons chairman, Tim Martin, who the ´óÏó´«Ã½ reported today as saying "People need to be re-educated about their drinking habits." This is entirely the case! Many younger people, of whom I am one, do drink sebsibly. It is a sweeping generalisation to assume, as many readers will, that it is younger people who are taking advantage of 24-hour drinking laws and causing disturbances, when in many cases I have seen this including the more mature as well.

There was successful "re-education" on drink-driving, backed up with some very powerful, and slightly disturbing TV adverts. The same attitude is needed to curb binge drinking. Binge drinking is not something that is going to go away overnight, no more than drink-driving has done. Attitudes towards drink-driving have been changed over a decade or more, with heavier consequences, and greater public education on it. Surely this is the approach to take with binge drinking as well? Over the last decade, drink-driving has reached a stage where it verges on socially un-acceptable, most young people simply do not consider drinking before they drive. If this government is serious about curbing binge drinking, they must take action to educate people on the problems it causes, and the consequences of their actions, both on themselves and those around them. If appropriate action is taken, hopefully by 2015 we will be reaching a situation where binge drinking is seen as socially un-acceptable, and therefore somehting that very few people will be inclined to indulge in.

In short, lets raise awareness of the effects of binge drinking. Keep 24-hour licensing so there's no need to "rush the bar at last orders". Increase the penalties for those found to be drunk and disorderly. Above all else, the government must not seek "overnight" solutions if they actually wish to address the issue, rather than sweeping it under the carpet.

There are very few licensed premises with 24 hour licenses. Most of those don't remain open for 24 hours except on rare occasions. Local Authorities are now responsible for granting license applications and can remove them at very short notice if those premises clearly create or whose policies are thought likely to create trouble. Those powers are much tougher than previous ones, and enable Local Authorities and the Police to control trouble spots more effectively. That's what the Police asked for and have got.

Turning to the problem of binge drinking in the streets, the fundamental problem is that off-licenses are under less obligation than on-licenses to manage orderly drinking and comply with environmental and other regulations.

Consequently Off-licenses have a huge cost and price advantage vs pubs. Moreover, some staff in off-licenses may be reluctant to challenge teenagers' right to buy alcoholic drinks. All of which creates the problem of teenagers excluded from pubs resorting to on-street drinking without the restraint of pub staff and other customers they would meet in on-licensed premises.
Andrew Dundas - retired drinks marketing manager

Surely binge drinking is part of our British culture? It has been going on for centuries, and we have been frowning about it just as long - recall Hogarth's Gin Lane. It seems sad to me that in a country that cherishes tradition, the government wants to sanitise another aspect of life!

Nick, I listen to all the sledgehammer approach to the Country's problems and I always try to come to terms with the fact that I must be punished to solve those problems.

If a binge drinker, binge drinks, then I understand that it is my fault as well.

At this juncture, my protestations that I decline the invitation from the Government to binge drink myself senseless, is immaterial for the greater good of society.

Tax me for global warming, littering, for shutting mines, for drinking. Just tax me and it'll all go away. I promise.

I appeal to you to use this sledgehammer approach to solve a problem we have here in Stoke-on-Trent. We have a football side called Stoke City and we are on the edge of promotion to the Premier league (get in there!).

Unfortunately, there are a few strikers out there who disagree with this ambition and are helping us to refrain from delusions of grandeur.

Could you use this sledgehammer approach and ban all games in Division one, or install a heavy windfall tax on any club that puts into our net, and we will certainly go up this season.
A dead cert.

Don't say we're not helpful up here, we most certainly are.

Gary

Blimey, Education Education Education was the cry over 10 years ago and still not fixed, yet new licencing laws should make UK a Continental culture overnight !

What a surprise. - Give it a chance for goodness sake and stop decrying it straight away.

Look back to the past why is the UK binge drinking, did we do this in the 50's, 60's, 70's ?? What happened ?

Whats also happened in say Ireland, or France. Maybe we should look closer to home like Ireland. Do they have a binge drinking culture ? Are they different to the UK ?

Maybe answering a few questions, looking at trends might be a bit too positive rather than saying "oh dear oh dear I told you so" Lets close the pubs at 9:30pm

Opening hours have little to do with binge drinking. By definition binge means to get as much alchohol down ones throat in as little time as possible.
It is a cultural thing not a law thing. Germany does the same as us as well as many of the North European countries. Germany are open all hours.
One thing that has changed though in the UK is the type of alcholic drinks consumed.I drank beer when I was a teenager. Its ABV around 3.8% max.
Now we have lager at an average ABV of 5.2%, alchopops etc.
This contributes to the problem. Yes I got drunk but ultimately you could only drink so much beer until you were completely bloated.

Well done again Nick. This parliament has been around long enough for its many failures to be clear. It is fair to say parliament rather than government because the opposition have been as poor at their job. The only opposition we seem to have are journalists raising these failures as MPs only care about prancing to the laughable conventions of the House.

This is much worse than it seems as huge amounts of money have been spent on every facet of the state (Education, Health, Crime, IT, Defence) and all have given shockingly poor value, as you show. Yet the UK will never have this wealth opportunity again (the oil is runnning out and finance market boom is over). The question is, how will we make this generation of MPs pay for the waste, the wars and the trashing of the UK's reputation ? It won't fix the damage but revenge can provide solace. How about every current MP loses their seat next time around ? Even Mr Speaker. Let's go for it.

Maybe we should have a Lord High Executioner and flirting in public should be banned...as everyday goes by we become more and more like Titipu thnks to Brown and his meddling.

Cure for Drunken behaviour

At the same age as the majority of the alcholic miscreants of today I shared the 'duty barman' role with many other members of my football club.
At that time we were informed that the law stated that to serve alchoholic drinks to people who 'had had enough' would jeopardise the License of the club.
That being correct, and if the law still stands, - would it not be simple [after due warning]to remove the licenses and shut down the offending bars?

Having been a licensee I have observed drinking habits change from a social experience to an almost competitive desire to get drunk as quickly as possible. I do not believe that the so-called 24 hour drinking has any bearing on the consumption habits of the majority of the population. The necessity of not requiring people to rush down their last drinks of an evening and then being thrown out into the street at the same time is a good thing and I am sure the police have found that the 11pm to midnight Friday and Saturday is not as hectic as it once was. We have a totally different problem now which has been caused not by the licensing hours but by the types of drink available. The euphemistically named 'alco-pops' have been designed to be drunk as if they are harmless soft drinks. This is the fault of the manufacturers who have seen a market comprising high spending but irresponsible teens and twenties. They have promoted their products to meet the demands of the vulnerable. Measures need to be taken to prevent these drinks being sold. Licensees can then be required not to serve concocted drinks such as snakebites, tequila slammers etc. Eventually we may revert back to the oldfashioned drinking habits that got the majority of people socialising rather than collapsong or fighting.

[I]PS: The Guardian informs me that David Cameron supports "the staggering of closing times". Does he support the slurring, puking and mooning too? We should be told.[/I]

Oh dear Nick, just, oh dear.

The introduction of 24h drinking licenses is meant to change our attitude as a nation towards drinking. Everyone would agree that this takes time, so why should we expect to see positive results such a short period after changing the law? A liberal attitude towards drinking seems to work in many different countries, but they have had decades within which to mature. Knee-jerk reactions should be avoided.

Either the drunks themselves, or the landlords who sell them the booze will have to pay for the trouble caused. I shell out enough tax for all these foreign wars Britain is having, and I won't pay up for fighting between drunks in our own country.

The introduction of 24h drinking licenses is meant to change our attitude as a nation towards drinking. Everyone would agree that this takes time, so why should we expect to see positive results such a short period after changing the law? A liberal attitude towards drinking seems to work in many different countries, but they have had decades within which to mature. Knee-jerk reactions should be avoided.

The main problem is that supermarkets and shops can sell alcohol very cheaply.People can buy this cheap and strong alcohol outside pub times and cause a lot of trouble.the price of beer in a pub means it is harder to get drunk in a pub now - and most people that do have been drinking the cheap alcohol before they enter the pub or a wine bar/club.
Pubs are shut in Wolverhampton before certain high profile football matches by the police, yet you cans still buy cheap alcohol from the supermarkets/off licences which are still open !

NO NO NO!!! As some one who lives in a large city and who has been going out at the weekend for 15years i can say i have seen about everything. Yes it's a very good idea pubs/clubs opening 24hrs most decent people dont want to be told when they must finish drinking. No matter what political party you favor there is no escaping the fact most drunken abusive behavior is caused by young people who just want to get drunk and try and get off with someone, but become violent when "hey are you looking at me" attitude takes over.
The only way to try and combat this problem once and for all is to increase the legal age to buy alchol to 21yrs old and to be asked for ID if you look under 25. Thats not a bad idea maybe i should run for goverment i cant do much worse.

Nick

Never mind binge drinking. This government is in the grip of binge thinking.

Result - staggering from review to review, short term memory loss, repetitive ramblings, lashing out at passing observers and spewing out regurgitated initiatives more likely to be reported than actioned.

Sadly, the binge thinking is not restricted to the binge drinking issue.

en will the Government learn that, not only is its draconian legislation through licensing law not working as far as curbing binge drinking is concerned, but is in fact once again hurting the law abiding, tax paying majority.
Speaking as one of thousands of alcohol retailers, I have the experience of 13 years selling drink to a wide cross section of society and it seems to me that my business is under siege by people with power who don't know what they are doing.
I can't think of another industry where proprietors are blamed for the consequences of the way the products they sell are used by their customers. Test purchases using under age young people who look eighteen or over are used to entrap alcohol retailers whilst the drunken perpetrators of anti social behavior continue unhindered by a police force unable to cope.

May I suggest that in order to have any effect on the availability of alcohol to under age drinkers, that alcohol is only obtainable through existing specialist off licenses and pubs where all sales can be supervised by the licensee. Surely there is no absolute requirement for it to be sold by petrol stations, supermarkets and general stores etc.

If, as seems the government's intention, alcohol is taxed more heavily (isn't it already?) and there are less legitimate outlets, the whole market will increasingly be supplied by the black market and, let's face it, alcohol is pretty easy to make at home.

Listen Gordon! The British people will only take so much. You cannot tax your way around this one.

24 Drinking was not kneejerk legislation, but it appears that, after a matter of months, its opponents want a kneejerk response.
This would be a terrible shame.

As some other commentators on this subject have noticed, it will take longer than 3 years for this policy to bear fruit. The only bars and clubs that have embraced the new longer licensing hours are those engaged in cut-throat town centre competition. They need to pull in the punters, so have pushed hard for new licenses. But the quieter pubs with respectable, established clienteles have not because they don't need to. Their publicans want to get home at a decent hour and they may have a locational advantage that means there is no competition where they are based. Therefore, they don't apply for a longer license.

The problem appears to be the councils who are loathe to hand out too many late licenses for fear of retribution at the ballot box in the short run. But the solution is a long run one. The simple answer to a market failure such as this is to automatically make every license in issue a 24 hour license. Pubs then don't need to apply for one, the councils can't reject applications and clubs that don't play by the rules can easily be reprimanded by removing their licenses.

Get an economist onto the problem, that's what I say. Evan...where are you?

Instead of blaming a piece of legislation (which I am for), maybe commentators and onlookers should question why people go out to get drunk? It is not a new phenomenon, and whatever the government does to solve the "problem", I personally do not think it will tackle it. In my experience, people use alcohol as a quick and cheap antidote to the pressures of modernity (some more than others). Maybe if people were more content within their lives and surroundings, they would not turn to alcohol to "make it disappear"?
The legislation has benefited me personally. I thoroughly enjoy going out at night, and the law means that clubs can serve alcohol late - meaning they will stay open longer. Before the legislation, clubs and bars would close early: meaning an influx of people onto the streets (a common catalyst for fights and brawls to begin).
My main concern is the frankly wrong media representation of our town and city centers at night (especially at weekends). Young men are portrayed to be violent, antisocial beings; women are deemed to be paralytic and laying in the gutter. Never before have I experienced such a sight, and hope not to. Binge drinkers come in every shape and form. Whether this legislation existed or not, children would still have access to alcohol, and so would anyone else who wanted to get drunk.

It is missleading to say only 470 24 hour licenses have been issued (typical missleading statistic by NuLabor).
There is a big difference to a nearby pub closing at 11, or at 2 or 2 in the morning. Round where I live nearly every pub applied (and was granted) to be open till well after 12, and this is what matters if you want to sleep before work in the morning!

Legislation and blaming individuals will not solve the problem of binge drinking that we have in the UK; it requires more of a shift in mentality from the whole of our society.

Alcohol must be seen for what it really is, a drug, that leads to addictive consumption. Because so many people are drinking in the first place, it comes to be perceived by the young as a central facet of adult life.

Teenagers obviously want to grow up and be part of society - therefore one of the first things perceived to be required to pass into adulthood is the experimenting with drink. Those that want to try especially hard to be sociable and fit in are usually those that are more prone to drink to excess.

The whole problem lies in the wide acceptance of alcohol. As soon as it is acceptable, people become trapped into the routine of drinking it and therefore it becomes a part of common culture. One can't expect the younger generation to resist the example and culture that its society has set down for them.

In order to improve the situation, more people must be active in publicly rejecting alcohol and in spreading understanding about how drug addiction works, and to encourage a different culture that is actually 'sociable'.

Ideally, the shift in attitude towards drinking would be the same that has happened towards smoking - to uncover all its myths and see it for what it really is. If we don't, then we help create the next generation of binge drinkers.

Also 24 drinking is not an instant cure for binge drinking. This is a cultural problem we have developed - caused by early closing time forcing people to drink as quickly as possible in the past - and we are now in the process of undeveloping it. It will take time for society to fully adjust but it will. Already I see a reduction in the "downing" culture we have - less people do it. It won't go away soon though, but over the next 10-20 years.

This comment by Charles Goodwin gets to the heart of the matter. Winston Churchill echoed many a Buddhist scholar when he comment that "First you build your house then you live in it". The government is quite correct to gently relax the artificial drinking hours limits as, perversely, they have created the very behaviour they sought to abolish, as they are in providing the enforcement tools to remove problematic landlords who fuel this problem. They key to success is both public and local authorities unlearning bad habits and replacing them with a more relaxed and achievement orientated approach, as is appropriate.

Licensing laws alone are irrelevant. Those crying for or against them are deluding themselves. It was obvious from the beginning that simply changing the hours wasn't going to instantly change the UK into a cafe culture.

That said, I've lived in several countries now, all with unlimited licensing hours, huge amounts of alcohol advertising, cheaper alcohol, and all the other things we do to "control the problem" in the UK - and none of them have anything like the problem we do in the UK with binge drinking or violence.

The difference is the SETTING. People in other countries go out to sit down, eat, chat and drink. Therefore they consume at a much slower rate, in a more relaxed atmosphere, along with food.

People in the UK go out to drink... and they do it in crowded, noisy, standing room only bars where they can't get food or hear each other talk.

IMHO drink taxes should be based on the type of establishment.. with those that serve food and have seated areas paying lower taxes, and those which are standing room and drink only paying FAR higher taxes.

Make it £6 a drink in a bar or nightclub, but £3 in a cafe or restaurant.