Time to restore alcohol's status
The latest scare facing the drinks trade, say Whitehall-watchers, is that the Home Office wants to target drunks. Not the anti-social drunks we still see in town centres at night, but drinkers who are over the limit in the pub.
They may not be causing trouble, but as long as they're "drunk", they could be fined - along with the licensee who was serving them.
It's the latest bizarre idea to come from a Government that still loves to press-release initiatives rather than engage in constructive policy dialogue with an industry. As such, it smacks of marching drink-sodden youths to cash points.
That came to nothing. But the worry among some trade observers is that this one may get more of a head wind behind it. Gordon Brown is desperate for policy initiatives to unveil in his First Hundred Days and the policy gurus at the Department of Health have all too many of them.
Professor Ian Gilmore of the Royal College of Physicians has many DoH supporters who back his call for a ban on alcohol advertising. We know the DoH would like to increase taxes on alcohol, while the DCMS is so embattled over the costs of hosting the Olympics that it's lost interest in the debate.
This latest scare - cracking down on anyone who's "over the limit" in the pub - fits in nicely with the anti-alcohol mood gripping Whitehall. The fact that it would be ludicrous to start breathalysing customers doesn't mean it couldn't happen.
Tie it in with the recent scare story about linking road deaths to licensees who may have served them at some stage, and you can see that the drinks industry is severely on the back foot.
For some time now, leading licensees like Peter Linacre of Massive have been calling for the trade to fight back. Yet time and time again, the British Beer and Pub Association, for one, pooh-poohs the idea of a major advertising campaign that shows alcohol, or the pub trade, in a far more positive light. We can't change perceptions that way, they say. Flourishing leisure industries, such as coffee shops don't have ad campaigns, so we shouldn't either. Apparently, we can only change perceptions slowly over time, and by much subtler methods.
Rubbish! Advertising works. It's just a question of getting the right agency to get across the right message - and then spending enough money. Expensive, sure. But essential, and well worth the price if alcohol's social status is ever to be restored.
