Minister defends drink proposals

Minister defends drink proposals, and quite right too. This is one of the few liberal bits of legislation ever instigated by New Labour. It certainly does not make up for the rafts of authoritarism that they have also pushed through, and probably was only ever a cheap stunt to help htem in the election. But it is a, very small, step towards the right direction. It is being opposed by Judges on the grounds that drink is implicated in many of hte violent crimes that come before them, and in their views':
more drinking time = more drinking = more crime
However they leave out a vital variable in this equation, money. Most people live on salaries that make unlimited drinking impossible (well Judges might not). They can only drink as much as they afford, which sets an upper limit on the amount that can be consumed in a single night. With this bit of knowledge that there is an upper limit to the amount that can be consumed the equation changes to:
Same drinking in more time = less drunkeness = less crime
Scotland for example liberalised it's drinking laws 30 years ago and certainly is not any more roudy in the evening that England, they maybe wanting to tighten up the licencing laws now but this will only actually bring everything into equality with the laws proposed in this Bill.