Don't Just Drink, Think

In the new year, there is apparently to be a “review” of 24-hour drinking, due to the shocking suspicion on the part of our lords and masters that it might not, after all, have resulted in a “Continental-style café culture”. Well, that culture itself is an overstatement.

But more to the point, what did anyone expect? Part of the United Kingdom has always had much looser licensing laws. Has Scotland a Continental-style café culture? Yet she has a much stricter culture of Lord’s Day observance, despite never having had the tighter laws that apply in England.

A notional free-for-all, more or less, on Sunday trading did not make the Scots any less disinclined towards the practice (whatever else might have done so in very recent years, and in some parts of Scotland but certainly not in others). And a notional free-for-all, more or less, on alcohol purchase has not made, nor could it ever make, the English any less inclined towards pouring down their necks as much booze as possible in as short a time as possible.

The law in England needs to minimise the inconvenience to other people from those manifesting this very ancient cultural phenomenon. And perhaps the law in Scotland does, too.