What the Sunday papers said

More 12-year-olds are drinking than not, according to shock figures to be released tomorrow (Monday), reports the Sunday Express. A study by the Institute of Public Policy Research suggests Britain's drinks culture is spiralling out of control, with the majority of under 13-year-olds having sampled alcohol. Meanwhile Home Secretary John Reid has confirmed that data from the court proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform showed there had been no convictions of irresponsible landlords who flouted the law covering selling alcohol to underage teenagers. - Sunday Express​

Punch Taverns is understood to have entered exclusive negotiations with privately owned Admiral Taverns to sell the latter up to 1,000 pubs, the paper adds. Marston's has meanwhile hired accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers to sell some 300 of its pubs. - Sunday Express​

Property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz is likely to build on his five per cent stake in Sainsbury's. The move will be part of an effort to exert pressure on the supermarket giant's board to consider his proposal to split off its property assets from its operating arm, according to the Sunday Telegraph. Tchenguiz is believed to be employing the same pressure tactics on Sainsbury's as he has used on pub group Mitchells & Butlers, in which he has a stake of at least 16 per cent and where he wants to see a similar property/operating split. - Sunday Telegraph​

Observer columnist Jasper Gerard writes that he'd always opposed 'booze crackdowns'. But after being invited onto the Institute for Public Policy Research's study into alcohol use among the young he is now in favour of raising the drinking age to 21, since "we face an epidemic". With those under 13-year-olds who abstain from drinking alcohol in the minority of their age group, now would be the time to restrict the drunken revelry of young adults, a move which might just influence children away from booze at an early age. - Observer​

And finally…

A pub with huge political significance, formerly known as the Red Dragon in Salford, is to be sold, notes the Independent On Sunday. Now trading under the name of the Crescent, back in the 1860s the pub hosted two drinkers who literally revolutionised political thought worldwide. Karl Marx and his political ally Friedrich Engels - whose father owned a mill in the area - toured the nearby slums to collect evidence for Engels' seminal work, 'The Condition of the Working Class in England'. The pair would then retire to the Red Dragon to discuss the flaws of capitalism over a pint. - Independent On Sunday​