My Shout

Tim Martin fears the politicians' approach to binge drinking is actually making matters worse

It's difficult to fathom the underlying trends reflecting changes in human behaviour, even without the spinning and distortions of politicians and the media.

I've been personally trying to reconcile a number of events and statistics in the past week or two that don't seem to add up and, in particular, appear to indicate that the Government's approach to binge drinking, and its policy towards pubs in particular, is actually making matters worse.

The first troubling fact is that I've never met anyone in my life, be it policeman, magistrate, judge or teacher who first had a drink in a pub after the age of 18. In fact, the average age for that first drink, which varies a bit, seems to be around 15 or 16. If it's true that alcohol-related disorder and antisocial behaviour problems have worsened, could it be connected with the huge crackdown on under-age drinking in pubs? There is absolutely no question that it is far more difficult for someone under 18 to get a drink in a pub now than ever before.

I was dropped off by a cabbie outside one of our London pubs a few days ago. This 45-year-old explained he had visited Wetherspoon's Railway Bell in Barnet with his brother and two nephews aged 21 and 19 for a pint. The nephews did not have ID and were refused service by a manager. As publicans, we understand the situation. However, it is also hard for us to comprehend the incredulity of a father not being able to vouch for the age of his own children. Through the distorted prism of someone in the trade, I was secretly proud of our procedures.

A perplexing statistic is that since the 1970s, roughly the era when current legislators were at school, the amount of alcoholic drinks consumed in pubs has dropped from about 90% of the total to about 60%. I understand lager in off-licences and supermarkets will account for about 50% of total consumption this Christmas, for example. Any middle-aged person will be gobsmacked visiting the average student house these days to see the evidence of off-trade consumption.

But access to pubs is still not impossible for under-age drinkers, just more difficult. In middle class Exeter where I live, reflecting national trends, 100% of 16-year-olds, according to my straw poll, drink in pubs, but they have to pick them with care. Those less than 16 almost always start drinking a couple of years earlier, either at home or on street corners.

Another strange fact, at odds with the media view espoused by the Daily Mail, is that all 650 Wetherspoon pub licences were renewed a few months ago, without a single objection. Maybe we are better than most in this regard, or maybe we're not, but as we sell about 5% of British pints, it hardly indicates that the public perceives pubs as causing problems deriving from alcohol. Indeed, a few weeks ago, to take but one example, one of our pubs, with an impeccable record in all aspects of licensing, was visited by a van load or two of police who checked the ID of all our customers (average age about 55). The police are dancing to a political tune, but is this a correct deployment of their resources?

Perhaps the state we are now in partly results from mass hypocrisy, with the old generation trying to enforce rules about pub drinking that were never applied to themselves. Maybe a ruthless government needs to be seen to be doing something against the undoubted 'bad attitude' of many people of all ages, and pubs are a soft target. In this connection, a crackdown on pubs gives the impression of firm action. The reality is it is driving responsible people out of pubs and pushing more under-age drinkers than before into the streets.

I am not calling for a lowering of the legal age for alcohol consumption in pubs, but the severity of this crackdown is producing the opposite effects to those intended and is actually exacerbating the problem.