Alcohol debate is slipping away

The latest suggestion from the medical profession for tackling alcohol problems is to fine anyone being drunk in public £100, even if they aren’t causing a nuisance. Plastic surgeon Peter Mahaffey, who said he had been motivated to speak out after seeing patients with facial scarring and nerve injuries sustained during drunken disorder, told the British Medical Journal that be believed police should carry breathalysers and fine those three times over the drink-drive limit. "I think as a society we have had enough. We need to send out a strong message. The levels of drinking and the harm it is causing are depressing," he said. It might smack of Tony Blair’s famous plan to frog-march trouble-makers off to cash machines to pay on-the-spot fines, but at least the suggestion has the virtue of putting responsibility back on individuals for their actions. Perhaps surprisingly, the surgeon went on to criticise this week's Budget rise in drinks’ taxes for not being focused. "I am not sure it is the best way of tackling the problem. Why should we all pay when many drink responsibly?" Those sentiments would find support not just in the pub and bar industry, but probably in the country as a whole, which makes the Government’s tax hike even more disappointing. We can all argue about the scope and severity, but there is no escaping the real problems that alcohol causes in terms of health and social disorder. However, there had been a sense that arguments about personal responsibility and of focusing efforts on specific problem areas, as witnessed by the surgeon’s intervention, were gaining acceptance. The Chancellor blew that apart this week. As Derek Andrew, head of Marston’s managed pub arm, said in what must be the quote-of-the-week: “It is intellectually insulting and duplicitous. You talk to Government, they listen and nod and talk about a targeted approach and then they come out with this carpet-bombing approach. They must live in some parallel universe. How is this going to stop 10-year-olds on council estates drinking? It is just going to encourage people to seek out cheap products in supermarkets and discourage people from using pubs. It is callous beyond reproach.” It was obviously getting too difficult for the Government, who seem to have taken the easy route of short-term appeasement of the anti-alcohol lobby coupled with a quick-fix to raise badly needed revenue. However, as many seem to agree, it is likely to have little effect, except to push more to drink in the uncontrolled environment of their own homes and to encourage the return of the Transit van booze-cruisers bringing tax-free drink bought in Calais to be resold illegally on the nation’s housing estates. Chancellor Darling has presumably budgeted for the extra Customs & Excise men required to police this? The simple truth seems to be that talking to this Government is a waste of time. The New Puritanism is upon us and we should get used to it. To use a rugby analogy, the drinks industry must play what’s in front of it, and that means sidelining the politics and concentrating on operating and adapting businesses to changing times – as the best pub and bar chains already are. The public may love the idea of the traditional pub, but they also believe something has to be done about excessive drinking. A poll in The Times this week suggested that more than half the public (55%) actually agreed with the big increases in duty on alcohol. My own company’s research shows that as well as eating-out, rather than going out for a drink, now being the nation’s most popular out-of-home leisure activity, there is a feeling among the public that pubs and restaurants have a role to play in health issues, that people want to know the strength of what they are drinking and that pubs should even limit the amount of alcohol they sell customers. They also say they prefer pubs with good food and wine to traditional “boozers”, as witnessed by the fact that the big change in the eating-out market this past year has been the growth in pub bar meals. If it has time, the industry will do no harm in criticizing the Government’s half-baked approach to alcohol harm and even to be seen to be supporting initiatives that put the emphasis for control back on the individual, but the real priority will be to engineer their businesses to the new environment and to current consumer trends. The real challenge might actually be about coming to terms with a post-alcohol society? Scary, but don’t dismiss it too easily. Peter Martin is co-creator of M&C report and founder of Peach Factory