In which your host is proved right
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008Every prediction I made in this piece from 2005 on 24-hour drinking has proved to be correct: on-trade alcohol consumption has fallen, levels of alcohol-related crime haven’t changed; pubs haven’t made any extra money; but puritan idiots have continued to rail against the rule change anyway.
The most offensively stupid puritan argument is that ‘24-hour drinking hasn’t cut violent crime, so it was a failure’. No - the point is, it means that law-abiding people can go out for a drink without having to obey insane rules created to stop soldiers in the trenches getting jealous of civvies back home during WWI. That is a good thing in its own right. If drink-related violence had risen, we’d need to weigh the good against the bad. Since it hasn’t, we can say that the licensing law changes are an unequivocally good thing, and crack open some booze to celebrate. Hurrah!
(it’s also worth noting that on this issue, the Tories are lying crooks who should be run out of town on a rail. Quelle surprise…)
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