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August 10, 2005
24-Hour Party People
Frankly, I can’t wait for 24-hour drinking. It’s going to be hilarious. Quite apart from pubs packed to the rafters at three in the morning with insomniacs who’ve come down for a nightcap, and bedraggled nymphs who’ve tumbled out of clubs looking for a quick eighteen pints of lager before going to bed, we’re going to be treated to a round-the-clock version of those most contemporary of spectator sports – chav fighting and oik baiting. As the BBC reports today, the Council of Circuit Judges, responding to a Government consultation document, Drinking Responsibly, has warned that with the relaxed licensing laws that there will be ‘an inevitable explosion in alcohol-fuelled violence’. Certainly anyone who thinks that longer drinking hours in Britain will turn us into svelte continentals, eating bouillabaisse late into the evening with a glass of montepulciano had better think again. Or even better, think Faliraki.
In an appendix to the submission by the Council of Circuit Judges, one judge described how excessive drinking turned Brits into ‘savages, angry, blind and brutal’. Why are we like this? Well, for a start, we’ve never been any good with the grog – Chaucer and Hogarth testify to that – even if things have been getting markedly worse. And to be fair, there’s no point idealising the rest of Europe – the Italians have their own hooligan problem, and the Germans have never been too averse to a bout of fisticuffs after a drink or ten – but we remain the ultimate alcohol twits.
Booze is one of Britain’s great antisocial social problems. Perhaps it’s our weather (it seems there’s nothing like a bottle of whisky when you’re feeling dour and depressed), perhaps it’s our working patterns (nothing like a barrel of beer when you’re feeling overstressed), perhaps it’s our uptight manners (nothing like a few pints of personality if you want to be the coolest man in the bar), perhaps it’s our over-regulated, sanitised way of life (nothing like a night on the town to make you feel beyond the law), perhaps it’s our welfare state (nothing better for a cretinous thug to do than get sloshed and fight), but whatever it is, it has its roots deep in our culture.
It has to be a concern, then, that the government's response is to tweak the licensing laws. Particularly suspicious is the administration's habit of giving with one hand and taking away with the other, in this instance liberalising the drinking laws and introducing on the spot fines for those who drink too liberally. Either it's a stealth alcohol tax or an act of gross ineptitude. Surely the focus should be on attitudinal change - on education and propaganda campaigns. Of course, it’s possible that the government is taking the right course of action – the policy equivalent of steering into the skid when you loose control at the wheel. But the fact is that even if this is the right course of action, and in two generations we all end up more mature, we will, in the meantime, have to put up with fifty years of total mayhem. If the fabric of society becomes any more threadbare and unwoven than it already is, no future government will uphold the law changes.
So let me qualify my opening paragraph: it’ll be hilarious if, fleeing from militant Muslims, drunks and Hazel Blears, you find yourself in some remote corner of the planet with a satellite dish and a television. Sit back and enjoy the show.
Posted by Nick Seddon at August 10, 2005 12:23 PM
Comments
What does the Council of Circuit Judges know about modern street culture? Nothing I suspect, so maybe they should stick with judging and keep their opinions to themselves. Leave the majority of us who can cope with late night drinking to get on and enjoy our lives as we see fit. So how do we deal with drunken dissorder? There's no need for psychoanalysis or navel gazing. In fact it's so simple I'm amazed that the Council of Circuit Judges haven't thought of it yet. Send the drunken bums to jail.
Posted by: John East ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 10, 2005 06:18 PM
What jails?
The judges description is only too painfully accurate of the situation in my experience as is Boris Johnson's description of a heartwarming night in Carlisle in today's Telegraph.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml;jsessionid=4N44JZ3DS5CEXQFIQMGSM54AVCBQWJVC?xml=/opinion/2005/08/11/do1101.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/08/11/ixportal.html
Posted by: AW at August 11, 2005 02:59 PM
What jails?
The judges description is only too painfully accurate of the situation in my experience as is Boris Johnson's description of a heartwarming night in Carlisle in today's Telegraph.
Posted by: AW at August 11, 2005 03:02 PM
AW, Carlisle has a jail which I believe is now just a tourist attraction. I would not object to some of my taxes being used to refurbish this establishment to its former glory so that the good people of this city could fill it up with their home grown, drunken, violent scumbags. I think you would be amazed at how quickly the binge culture would disappear in Carlisle if such a measure was undertaken
Posted by: John East at August 11, 2005 06:38 PM
Yes but asking the Government to build more jails is like saying, say, don't decimate the Navy or - earlier in the year - take the anti-terrorism measures now being proposed. It's not going to happen before the situation deteriorates to crisis point. It was always going to take an atrocity for the establishment to start waking up out of their age-old naivety for the latter. For the former, it'll take another crisis before they realise how much truth there is to the phrase "asking to fight with one armed tied behing the back" before the Government realise how reckless is the diversion of money from the armed forces. In all cases we have to go through the excesses of political inertia and complacency before we do what is blindingly obvious to anyone with common sense. Thus extending opening hours I think is just removing any reamining signal indicating a need for moderation and replacing it with the message of a total free-for-all is to be had in your local warzone British town centre.
Posted by: AW at August 11, 2005 08:36 PM
Well, I visit my town centre (pop. 87,000; 9 pubs, 1 bar open to 1am, club open to 2am) most Fridays and Saturdays, and partake of a pint or six..."binge drinking! evil binge drinker!"... And IMHO reports that all town centres are Hogarthian pits of depravity and violence these days are, if not utter rubbish, rather overstated to send a shiver through the shockable souls of the media audiences. The odd "pavement pizza" may lurk for the unwary footstep, the odd punch-up is seen, the wandering drunk wavers by, and periodically is heard the raucous wail of the five or six pissed lads who've decided, despite the evidence of everyones senses that: a) they can sing and; b) football songs are what the world wants to hear. But it's no worse now than it was back in the 70's. Never worries me one bit. For our pale and quivering judges, may I commend police patrols - not hauling coppers over the coals when they give a smartmouth a smack, courts, jail sentences, etc.
Question: When does libertarianism become libertinism?
Answer: About 9 o'clock of a Friday evening, with any luck.
Posted by: John F at August 12, 2005 12:08 PM
I'm not sure if they said it was all town centres but downplaying the judge's words goes against what can be seen for one's own eyes in many cities. A man was "bottled" in the face and "scarred for life" in Stoke this week - reported yesterday on Central news. This is the same old sorry story in the same old sorry city centre. Sunday nights used (perhaps still are) to be an absolute joy - boy racers driving round the same 3 or 4 hundred yards of road, leering out of the windows. You turn around and that's it - the car has stopped and out they come! Anybody entering a nightclub in the 1990s could have seen the "binge-drinking" getting out of control. Lewd acts inside and out, aggressive states of inebriation. As soon as the streetlights switch on in such places the rules change and people know it. On comes the green light for lawlessness and ****-bashing of taxi-drivers (as Roy Hattersley might put it). Who could fail to find resonance with the judge's words about "waiting for a victim to present himself". He says it's not just the inarticulate underclass but educated people - that's just the cases that make it to court for heaven's sake! Bruisers in their late '30s and '40s are out of a Friday and Saturday night just dying for an opportunity to prove they can still cut it and swing fists as much as the yobbo classes. What better way to finish off the night than clobber a couple of wet-behind-the-ears young men in a chippy? Might impress the ladyfriend - and if not it's a thrill. Besides, everybody else is doing it!
Posted by: AW at August 12, 2005 02:55 PM
We've got 24hr drinking in Australia. Doesn't increase the violence, just spreads it out a bit.
Do I detect a bit of ye olde paternalism from the liberals?
Posted by: strayan at August 17, 2005 01:38 AM
Isn't that like saying resdistribution/socialists?
Besides, spreading out the violence is even worse to my mind.
The one time ordinary, civilised people get to wander the streets in relative safety and they face being exposed to the base mentality that they'd face at night. I was out last weekend late afternoon in a small town and already the maniacs were out in their cars if not screaming music with windows down then screaming abuse randomnly. The caps'n't-shirt brigade were beginning to cluster in drinking districts waiting for the first sniff of night-life.
This isn't a liberal society, it's anarchy with no one wanting to spare a "paternal" thought to the condition of those who feel obliged to drink and fight to oblivion every weekend evening let alone the victims.
The solution from this government will no doubt be anything but Paternalistic. It'll be more akin to police-state . Up the liberals.
Posted by: AW at August 24, 2005 08:27 PM
Isn't that like saying resdistribution/socialists?
Besides, spreading out the violence is even worse to my mind.
The one time ordinary, civilised people get to wander the streets in relative safety and they face being exposed to the base mentality that they'd face at night. I was out last weekend late afternoon in a small town and already the maniacs were out in their cars if not screaming music with windows down then screaming abuse randomnly. The caps'n't-shirt brigade were beginning to cluster in drinking districts waiting for the first sniff of night-life.
This isn't a liberal society, it's anarchy with no one wanting to spare a "paternal" thought to the condition of those who feel obliged to drink and fight to oblivion every weekend evening let alone the victims.
The solution from this government will no doubt be anything but Paternalistic. It'll be more akin to police-state . Up the liberals.
Posted by: AW at August 24, 2005 08:33 PM
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