THE CASE FOR ‘REMAIN’

My starting point in the EU referendum debate is that the burden of proof is with those who advocate change. It is for them to convince the rest of us that the change they propose would be beneficial. For me the most important issues are the economy and access to the single market; and democracy and political stability in Europe. I believe both are better served by staying in rather than leaving the EU.

But I’m a believer in small government, less meddling, less red tape and bureaucracy, so why would I support membership of the EU? In one word: globalisation. That’s the elephant in the room in respect of this whole debate. Margaret Thatcher and President Reagan didn’t invent globalisation, but they gave it a hell of a push off the side when they abolished currency controls and controls on the movement of capital. These changes let the genie of globalisation out of the bottle and we cannot now stuff it back in. Money and capital and are now traded in global currency and stock markets 24/7, and the globalisation of business ownership, which was already well under way when these changes happened, has accelerated apace ever since.

When I hear the Leave campaign talk of “taking back control” and “regaining our sovereignty” it seems to me they are in denial of globalisation. Their view of sovereignty is that it’s a zero-sum game; a bit like virginity – either you’ve got it or you haven’t! They’re living in a nineteenth century world when capitalism was nation-state based and the British cabinet was a committee of British businessmen who owned big factories, mills, ship yards and mines; their hands directly on the levers of economic power. And we had an empire on which the sun never set. That world has vanished and capitalism is now global.

Vast quantities of money and capital swirl around the global financial system; recent decisions about our steel industry were taken not in Westminster, or by faceless bureaucrats in Brussels, but by businessmen sitting in a room in Mumbai. If we are to have any chance of “taking back control” of the global forces that impact our economy and prosperity we are better able to do so as part of something bigger than ourselves – an EU of 28 nations which pool their sovereignty and act together – rather than as a single country acting on our own. Sitting in a boat in the middle of the Atlantic singing “Rule Britannia” whilst sailing off into the sunset isn’t an exercise in sovereignty, but in futility.

The Leave campaign has moved the goalposts on the economy. At the beginning of the Brexit debate they advanced a ‘cake and eat it’ argument: that it was possible to resign our membership of the EU club, but negotiate retention of the terms of trade benefits conferred by the single market – whilst at the same time not having to pay the club’s annual membership fee or abide by its rules. The notion that we can ditch the costs whilst retaining the benefits has always seemed to me to be a fundamentally improbable proposition. 

The Leave campaign has now abandoned that position and stated they want to leave the single market and become part of the European free trade area or revert to WTO trading rules – which would result in our goods being subject to tariffs of up to 10%. 

In terms of democracy and political stability, I remember when Spain, Portugal and Greece weren’t in the Common Market because they were ruled by fascist dictators. I remember when a host of former Soviet satellite countries weren’t able to join because they were communist dictatorships. Now they are all functioning democracies and all members of the EU. The EU has held the political centre together.

On the Leave side the one argument that is cutting through is immigration. Again, this is couched in terms of taking back control. And you hear members of the public in some of the televised debates saying things like “we should put up the shut sign.” Have these people been to an international airport recently? Take Heathrow as an example: 75 million passengers arrived or departed that airport in 2015. On its busiest day, 17^th August, 257,312 people arrived or left – and 69% of them were international passengers, not domestic ones. You see how this works Boris? How exactly do you “put up the shut sign” or “take back control” in an era of mass travel? 

My father visited France for the first time on D-Day – with a Bren-gun strapped to his chest – as did many members of his generation. Now anyone can jump on a plane and visit Paris or another European destination for £50. 200,000 British families now own houses in France; 300,000 Brits have retired to, or work in Spain; there are some 50,000 Brits living in Italy. Immigration isn’t something done to us by foreigners whilst we all stay in dear Old Blighty watering our spider plants. We’ve moved on.  

Ultimately the issue of immigration is another state versus the market argument. No matter what the state does it is ultimately our jobs market that will determine the immigration volumes – unless we’re prepared to sacrifice economic growth and trash our economy on the altar of public incomprehension of what it means to live in a globalised world.

I’ll be voting for ‘Remain’!

SIMPLE SOLUTIONS FOR COMPLEX PROBLEMS

One of the interesting things about the EU referendum is the public clamour for “the facts”. People are bamboozled by claim and counterclaim and long for someone just to explain things to them in a simple, factual manner, without spin or bias. I’m not proposing to discuss the ‘Neverendum’ in this article, but this desire for ‘simple facts’, and for simple solutions to complex problems that will supposedly arise from simple facts, has a much wider resonance. There are three examples of it currently in the news: the Scottish alcohol consumption figures, leading to a renewed call for minimum unit pricing (MUP); the challenge posed by the National Obesity Forum to established science on nutrition; and the banning of so-called legal highs, otherwise known as New Psychoactive Substances (NPS).

Scotland has for a long time had a greater level of alcohol consumption per head than England and Wales and the news that consumption per head of population has risen in Scotland for the second year running was coupled in the media with the observation that Scots drink 20% more alcohol than their English and Welsh counterparts. This gives the erroneous impression that consumption in Scotland has risen by 20%. It hasn’t. It has risen by 2%. And that 2% rise in consumption is over two years – 2014 and 2015. This needs to be placed in the context of a 9% fall in alcohol consumption between 2007 and 2013, so the simple fact is that alcohol consumption in Scotland is still 7% lower than in 2007.

But this tiny upturn has been blamed by campaigners on the alcohol industry’s desire to arrest the decline in sales. At the same time we have seen a big increase in the amount of alcohol consumed at home – 74% of alcohol is now bought from off-sales retailers - so, blame the dastardly supermarkets? Well how about we look instead at the lowering of the drink-drive limit in Scotland as something that has driven people out of pubs and into home drinking - where we know that people pour themselves bigger measures than when they drink in the supervised environment of the pub.

According to Alcohol Research UK weekly alcohol consumption per head in England and Wales in 2015 was 17.4 units; in Scotland it was 20.8 units. This is moderate drinking by anyone’s standards except the anti-alcohol zealots of Alcohol Concern and Alcohol Focus Scotland. And what is the Scottish health community’s solution to this over-hyped, over-inflated problem? Why, minimum unit pricing of course!

And what of the National Obesity Forum’s assertion this week that high fat diets are good for you and that low carb and low sugar diets are the answer? This assertion from a bunch of Atkins Diet cranks is another example of how tiny special interest groups feed into the public’s desire for simple solutions. Identify one ingredient – sugar – and tell people to consume as much bacon and eggs, beef dripping and lard as they want – just cut down on the sugar, and you’re giving people another simple solution to a complex problem. And government bows to this kind of campaigning by introducing a tax on fizzy drinks – something that will have no effect whatsoever on levels of obesity.

My third example – the ban on ‘legal highs’ - kicks in today. Readers are probably aware of substances like Spice, which is a synthetic drug that mimics the effects of cannabis, and M-Cat, which has similar effects to strong amphetamine drugs. These and many other compounds are available on the internet and at so-called ‘head shops’ on the high street. They have been linked to around 400 deaths over the past few years, and Spice in particular is blamed for an upsurge of violence in our prisons. The problem for the government is that every time they banned a new legal high the chemical composition was changed slightly so that it became legal again. The government’s response was to ban everything except those intoxicants that were explicitly legal – essentially alcohol, nicotine and caffeine. I can understand the government’s desire to be seen to do something about this problem, but there are problems with this prohibition-style approach.

Firstly, many of these drugs mimic the effects of existing illegal drugs – cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy. Given that successive governments’ have ruled out decriminalising or medicalising their supply, prohibition becomes the only option. So, first criminalise the three main recreational drugs, and then when that leads to the creation of a market for cheaper, ‘legal’ synthetic alternatives, criminalise them too. Sale of these drugs will now move to the dark web and it is unlikely that anyone who wants them won’t be able to get them. There is no simple solution to the drugs problem, but we must surely be able to come up with something more intelligent than repeating a failed strategy of prohibition because the public expects something to be done.

Paul Chase

HEALTH, WELLBEING AND PERSONAL HAPPINESS – IT’S A SLIPPERY SLOPE!

Have you noticed how changes to the use of language are often employed to soften us up to accept extensions to the power of the state over our daily lives? An example is the increasing use of the term ‘health and wellbeing’. It is no longer enough for the state to provide a health service that treats illness and disease; it must now, and increasingly does, focus on a much more nebulous task – the provision of ‘wellbeing’. Now, call me old fashioned, but back in the day you were healthy if you weren’t unhealthy, i.e., suffering from a recognised medical condition. If you were suffering from an illness or disease then a doctor would diagnose it, and treat you or cure you, or not as the case may be. But ‘wellbeing’, or the lack of, is a subjective condition, not an objective one, and its link to ‘health’ provides the opportunity for all kinds of state-sponsored mischief. In fact, wellbeing isn’t that far away from the concept of ‘happiness’. 

So what happens if our National Health Service morphs into a National Health and Wellbeing Service? Or even a National Health, Wellbeing and Personal Happiness Service? A bottomless money-pit is the inevitable result. And there are people out there who no doubt have the best of intentions, but consider it their business to poke their noses into all sorts of things that really aren’t their business, in the name of ‘health and wellbeing’. 

Which brings me to Councillor Izzy Seccombe. Izzy, as I shall henceforth refer to her, is the Local Government Association’s (LGA) Community and Wellbeing spokeswoman. Now, we all know that councils are strapped for cash, but they still have enough money to fund surveys by the LGA into vital matters, such as how many people drink tap water when they are dining out (I kid you not). The LGA’s survey apparently discovered that only a third of diners drink tap water when eating out. But don’t worry, Izzy was soon on the case. She said this: “While most restaurants will happily provide a glass of tap water on request, we’re saying it shouldn’t be something you have to ask for. Some people may be too embarrassed. Others may simply forget it’s an option.”

You’d have to be extraordinarily absent minded to forget that you can drink water if you’re thirsty, but “embarrassed”?  If asking for a glass or jug of tap water in a pub or restaurant embarrasses you, then I fear that your life may consist of a never-ending series of insurmountable challenges. So, let me offer a bit of scenario training:

I rock-up at a pub restaurant with my friends and I’m greeted by a member of staff: 

“Good evening sir!”

“Good evening. I have a table booked for four adults and two kids – in the name of Chase.” (member of staff consults list). 

“Yes sir, come right this way.” (We sit down and menus are distributed). 

She asks: “Would you like to order some drinks while you’re looking at the menu?” 

“Bill, Ben, what would you like? Two pints of IPA please; and could I have a bottle of Shiraz for me and my partner? Oh, and a jug of iced water for the kids?” 

“Yes sir!”

You see how this works Izzy? Not a trace of embarrassment.

But Izzy wheels out the ultimate justification for health and wellbeing: “what about the children?” She wants water on the table whether you ask for it or not because it will help in the “fight against childhood obesity”. And because it might also protect adults from the temptation (that’s the word she uses) of “that extra alcoholic drink”. And she is not alone in her concerns. Russ Ludwa, chairman of the British Dental Association’s health and science committee said: “Diners deserve a choice, but shouldn’t feel they have to ask for the one option that doesn’t come bundled with sugars, acids or calories.” Er, Russ, asking for what you want is called ‘consumer choice’, it’s what we do when we go out and buy things.

I have visited numerous countries around the world, and the only one where you almost invariably get offered water whether you want it or not is America. So obviously they are a nation of slim people right? Oh no, they’re not – they’ve got the biggest obesity problem of any nation on earth!

The fundamental problem here is that these people don’t have enough to do. Giving ‘health’, let alone ‘health and wellbeing’, to local councils was a fundamental mistake. It awoke all these virtue-signalling local nannies from their slumber, and invited them to join in a chorus with all the other fuss buckets that want to regulate the tick and tock of other peoples’ lives. 

“Off with their heads” I say!

Paul Chase

THE VIEW FROM THE WRONG END OF THE TELESCOPE

There is no doubt that the closure of the steel works at Port Talbot would be a human as well as an economic catastrophe – particularly in an area like South Wales which is already very deprived. And so government ministers are scrambling to find a buyer and to “save jobs”. If Tata Steel closes we could see some 15,000 people lose their jobs, with up to 25,000 possibly lost in the supply chain, so 40,000 jobs lost in total. This has been the political story of the week and it has dominated the headlines and will probably do so for many weeks to come.

And yet on the 1^st April we saw the introduction of the new national living wage (NLW) for over 25’s, or the new national minimum wage for over 25’s as some prefer to call it. The government’s own estimate is that the introduction of this measure will cost some 60,000 jobs by 2020 when it is fully implemented and set at 60% of the median wage. 

So why aren’t politicians and commentators protesting this loss of jobs?  Well, firstly because the job losses will be spread out over five years and the government hopes no one will notice; and they will affect part time, poorly educated and low skilled workers most. According to research by the Social Market Foundation nearly 50% of those who will lose their jobs will be part-time workers; 40% of those affected are educated only to GCSE standard; and those working in social care, hospitality and pubs are particularly at risk. 

By the time the NLW is implemented in 2020 some 20% of workers will have their pay determined by government. What is wrong with that? Well, several things. The national minimum wage was originally introduced to put a floor under wages and prevent exploitative pay. Its regular reviews were carefully calibrated by the Low Pay Commission to minimise the impact that raising it would have on jobs. But by setting the NLW at 60% of the median wage government has locked in NLW increases regardless of the state of the jobs market. And don’t imagine for a moment that government will reduce the NLW if the median wage were to fall – that would fall into the “politically too difficult” category.

The NLW also introduces the idea that wages should be set to cover a workers cost of living, rather than the market rate for a day’s work. This is utterly iniquitous not least because employers have absolutely no control over the cost of living. But government does. If government wants to relieve the plight of low paid workers then there are a number of structural things they could do that wouldn’t involve meddling in the labour market at a cost of tens of thousands of jobs; but they’re looking at the problem from the wrong end of the telescope. Reducing the cost of living is a much more effective way of helping low paid workers than government wage intervention.

Let’s take as an example the average consumption of an adult in the bottom income quintile who smokes, drives a car and drinks alcohol. According to the Office for National Statistics this average low income consumer spends £1,746 a year on tobacco taxes - 15.4% of disposable income (DI); £933 a year on motoring taxes (8.3% of DI); £278 a year on alcohol taxes (2.5% of DI); £1,165 on VAT (10.3% of DI). In all, 36.5% of the disposable income of low income workers is spent on VAT and sin taxes. Halve sin taxes and reduce VAT to 15% and you could transform the living standards of the working poor without losing jobs. Of course, public health meddlers would have a fit if government were to reduce sin taxes – particularly on tobacco or alcohol; and government would have to wean itself off vanity projects and get its finances in order, so don’t expect any change in this direction soon. 

It is much easier for government to put this burden on employers than to put its own house in order.

It is also easier for government to take a moralistic view of the consumption patterns of the poor than to admit that its own taxes impoverishes them. The figures I’ve just quoted illustrate how indirect taxes are regressive and how they impact most on the living standards of those in the lowest quintile. By contrast, sin taxes and VAT gobble up only 15% of those in the highest quintile. The cost of sin is only going to rise with the introduction of the sugar levy – another measure that will disproportionately affect the poor. Someone needs to turn the telescope round.

Paul Chase

“A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR MAKES THE MEDICINE GO DOWN!”

OK, I hold my hands up – I did watch ‘Mary Poppins’ in 1964 – but I was only 15 years-old! But George Osborne seems to have watched it more recently if the announcement of a sugar levy in his Budget is anything to go by. But if he hoped the sugar levy would distract from his cuts to benefits for the disabled, then the resignation of Iain Duncan-Smith a couple of days later scuppered that one. As Harold Wilson put it: “A week is a long time in politics.”

But what are we to make of the sugar levy? Is this a genuine attempt to make us healthier, or just another cynical ploy to appease a noisy campaign group, whilst distracting us from the cuts? What is interesting is how the management of expectations has kicked-in since the measure was announced. Before the Budget Jamie Oliver was claiming that a sugar tax would be a “game changer”; then after the announcement, in a moment of euphoria that must have been almost like a sugar-rush, he proclaimed that the measure would “send ripples around the world”. Then he came down to earth with a bump and said it was just a “symbolic slap” for the soft drinks’ industry. From game-changer to symbolic slap whilst hardly pausing to take breath.

The campaign group Action on Sugar is naturally delighted, although they have always said that it is just a “useful first step”. And this is what concerns me most: that these types of policy proposals are always presented to us by campaigners in the media as isolated measures. The truth is they are door-openers to much wider measures that will see state regulation of the food chain and mass product reformulation. If the problem, as presented to us, is that the incidence of obesity at the population level is too high - something like a third of the adult population are said to be obese - then are we seriously supposed to believe that a sugar levy that will raise the price of a can of pop from 69 pence to 77 pence will lead to a measurable reduction in population levels of obesity? Because if not, why introduce it?

Here we come back to the “useful first step” scenario. Certainly a levy that will raise £520 million in its first year will be a useful first step for a government desperate to fill an £18 billion hole, but what will the next steps be? Fortunately, we don’t have to guess, because Action on Sugar have, at the request of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, provided some helpful suggestions. Here they are:

• Reduce added sugars by 40 per cent by 2020 by reformulating foods (a similar  rogramme to salt).
• Reduce fat in ultra-processed foods, particularly saturated fat – 15 per cent reduction by 2020.
• Cease all forms of marketing of ultra-processed, unhealthy foods and drinks to children.
• Disassociate physical activity with obesity via banning junk food sports sponsorships.
• Limit the availability of ultra-processed foods and sweetened soft drinks as well as reducing portion size.
• Incentivise healthier food and discourage drinking of soft drinks by planning to introduce a sugar tax.
• Remove responsibility for nutrition from the Department of Health and return it back to an independent agency.

Well, number 6 is in the bag, so watch this space.

At the heart of all these proposals is the implicit belief that government must regulate because consumers are either too dumb to make their “sensible choices”, or else they are hopelessly addicted to products that have been deliberately spiked with sugar, salt and fat – ingredients that titillate the taste buds – and that ‘Big Food’ has addiction as a core part of its strategy. This fantasy of corporate coercion is at the heart of ‘healthism’ – the ideology of ‘the health of the nation.’

In fact there is no market failure in relation to sugary drinks – all the major producers sell sugar-free, low carb and calorie-free versions – Coke Zero and Diet Coke are just two examples that come to mind. But that isn’t enough for the healthist zealots. ‘Aspartame’, which is used as a sugar-substitute in many of these sugar-free alternatives, is then pilloried as being even worse for your health by a series of scare stories which have precious little to do with science. Read “Aspartame – the truth” on the NHS Choices website if you don’t believe me.

The puritanical nature of the sugar-phobes is thus plain for all to see. They won’t be satisfied until all food is bland, tasteless and “good for your health.” The fact is that many of the things that give us pleasure involve consumption. And many of these things are bad for us – at least if consumed to excess. But we don’t have to make a zero-sum choice between maximising pleasure or maximising health, most people seek a balance summed up by the old maxim “A Little Bit of What You fancy Does You Good, but Everything in Moderation.” I’d rather decide for myself what those trade-offs should be, I don’t need the state to do it for me.

Paul Chase

MORE ILL-INFORMED MEDDLING

You may not have heard of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (Alcohol Limits) (Amendment Bill), but it was a private members Bill introduced in the House of Lords by Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, a Labour peer. The effect of this amendment, had it been introduced, would have been to lower the drink drive limit from 80 milligrams of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood to 30 milligrams – which is already the drink drive limit in Scotland. In Scotland this change has had a devastating effect on pubs, and particularly pubs in rural areas. The Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA) has stated that the introduction of this measure has been “catastrophic” for pubs, with people who might have stopped-off for a pint on the way home from work now deciding not to do so.

In a debate in the House of Lords on the 11^th March a number of comments were made that are worthy of note. Lord Rae, also a labour peer, had this to say:

“The Scottish licensed catering association (sic) has said that the introduction of that measure has been “catastrophic” for the industry. In other words, drinking as a whole has gone down—no one has mentioned that effect of the measure—quite apart from any effect on accidents on the roads. When the prohibition on smoking in public places came in, it reduced the prevalence of heart disease. Heart attacks, for instance, came down measurably as a result of that step. Therefore, small measures such as the one we are discussing will gradually reduce the consumption of alcohol, which, when used excessively, is very harmful, as we all know.”

Now, what is wrong with this statement? Well, just about everything. Firstly, the fact that consumption in pubs has fallen as a result of the change to the drink-drive limit does not prove that alcohol consumption as a whole has fallen. What we know is that there is a long-term trend away from drinking in pubs and bars and towards drinking at home, where the measures that people pour for themselves are generally much larger than they those served in a pub. Lowering the drink-drive limit can only serve to accelerate that trend. Secondly, a measure that is designed to reduce population levels of alcohol consumption shouldn’t be smuggled in as a measure to reduce drink-driving. Thirdly, there is no evidence that the reduction in the limit in Scotland has reduced drink-drive deaths or injuries. Certainly, as the government peer Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon pointed out:

“It is also important to note that the penalties for drink-driving in England and Wales are more severe than in other countries, and despite the majority of these other countries having lower alcohol limits, they do not have a better record on reducing drink-drive casualties. The Government therefore maintain our position that lowering the limit in itself is not going to change people’s behaviour and would not be the best use of resources to improve safety on our roads at this time.”

Well said sir! But Lord Rae then goes on to cite the smoking ban as having directly led to a reduction in the prevalence of heart disease and a measurable reduction in heart attacks; his point being that small changes can have big effects which are a kind of bonus to the effects originally intended. Only one problem, the smoking ban has had absolutely no effect on the prevalence of heart disease or the incidence of heart attacks.

Running up the white flag of surrender, the last word in this debate went to Lord Brooke, the author of the amendment:

“I hope that the many individuals, organisations and members of the public who have supported me — I express my public gratitude to them — and who are in favour of this measure will continue to put pressure on the Government to bring about a change which will be in the best interests of all concerned, other than, perhaps, the drinks and hospitality industry.”

Well perish the thought that we should even consider the interests of the drinks and hospitality industry – after all they just create wealth and jobs and generate taxes so these ill-informed, unelected and unaccountable jobsworths can meddle in things they don’t understand. But then again, it was the Lords that rejected nationalisation of pubs in 1908. Well at least they got one thing right in the last hundred years!

BORIS BASHES BINGERS – PART 2!

Back in 2011 I wrote a piece for Propel titled “Boris Bashes Bingers”, in which I outlined a scheme put forward by London Mayor Boris Johnson whereby drunken offenders would be subject to “sobriety orders”, and would have to report to police stations twice a day for sobriety tests to ensure their compliance. The government quite rightly refused to finance this scheme on the grounds of practicality, but Boris came back with a high-tech solution from America: a “sobriety bracelet scheme” for those convicted of serious drink-related offences who might otherwise have been sent to prison. 

I expressed back then my reservations about this scheme, but then heard nothing more about it, and assumed it had either died a death or been trialled and found wanting. But not a bit of it! The scheme has been trialled in south London and two other areas – Cheshire and Northamptonshire. It works like this: 

On conviction for a drink-related offence the Court orders a community sentence, but imposes a “sobriety condition”; the offender must abstain from drinking alcohol for 120 days – down from the six months that was originally envisaged.  To enforce this, the offender is fitted with an ankle bracelet that can detect alcohol by measuring air and perspiration emissions from the skin every 30 minutes. Blood alcohol levels as low as 0.02% can apparently be detected, and the bracelets can tell when the alcohol was consumed and then electronically transmit that information to a monitoring station. The police are then informed that the offender has broken his “sobriety condition” and can arrest him and bring him before the court.

Boris Johnson has hailed the trial of this scheme as a success: “Sobriety tags have proved a fantastic success in helping offenders across south London to stay off the booze and avoid the circumstances under which they might reoffend.” Apparently 91% of the tagged offenders complied with the sobriety order and stayed off the booze for 120 days. This compares with only 61% of offenders who complied with traditional community service orders for alcohol-related offences. 

Point proved? Not quite. Only 113 offenders were put on these tags during the 12-month trial and 9 breached the condition, leaving 104 who complied. A good result for a very small sample of people who, I suspect, were specially selected as “suitable cases for treatment”. The 61% success rate (or 39% failure rate if you prefer) for those offenders sentenced to other forms of community order is clearly a percentage of a much larger number. I can’t discover what that number is, but Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, stated recently that 80% of offences committed in London were related to alcohol. That would be at least 588,821 recorded offences then, if you believe this statement, which personally I don’t. Just what does “related to alcohol” mean?

This is a classic example of how politicians desperate for positive headlines work: hail as a “fantastic success” a scheme involving a small number of people specially selected as suitable cases for treatment, and then make an invalid comparison with a much larger group of people which represents the generality of offenders who haven’t been selected – and fail to mention that! We can tell nothing form this scheme except how base the motives of politicians are!

I am very much in favour of people being held responsible for their own misbehaviour, rather than ever-greater server liability, but I think we need to put sobriety bracelets into the context of the other measures supported by police and others for the control of the night-time economy: breathalyser tests carried out by door supervisors, ID scanners and potentially drug detection dogs. Whilst acknowledging that drunkenness and alcohol-related crime – howsoever defined – is a serious problem, it is a serious problem that all the crime surveys say is declining, so I don’t feel there is a pressing need to turn our city centres into leisure ghettos or our venues into fortresses. I want to see alcohol-related domestic violence reduced. But we surely need to incentivise people to drink out of home rather than at home if we want to achieve that.

It’s not difficult to imagine a development of this technology so that it could be applied to the operation of individual licensed premises. I can imagine the Government empowering licensing authorities to require premises in the night-time economy to provide a bracelet to every customer on a Friday and Saturday night. If the customer consumes more than, say, four units of alcohol, this is electronically communicated to a unit behind the bar, the bracelet illuminates and the customer has to leave. It’s the logical next step if you’re asking door supervisors to test for sobriety on entry. But surely I’m being paranoid, right? Surely no government is going to regulate the tick-and-tock of individual behaviour in this way? That’s precisely what people said when the smoking ban was first mooted. Watch this space.