"Off with his head""

The knee-jerk reaction by the Queen, as told by Lewis Carroll, seems to have a counterpart in NuLabour. If there's a problem, the reaction seems to be "Ban it, pass laws, attach penalties."

This, I suspect is why they have made little impact on social problems - passing laws does not deal with underlying problems.

The latest "Ban it" emerged this morning with the news that to attack the binge drinking problem, magistrates are to have the power to impose "alcohol ASBOs. Drunks may be banned from particular pubs or other drink suppliers, of from particular areas. Once an order has been imposed, there will be a hefty £2,500 fine for any infraction.

Given that fewer "ordinary" ASBOs are being applied for, as they do not work, it is nothing short of amazing that the government intends to use this approach towards drunks.

Who will do the monitoring of the bans? Will publicans and all their staff have copious "wanted" type photos of all those with a ban, which they must regularly consult? Does the system depend on pubs, off-licences, supermarkets, etc. reporting suspects to the police? Alternatively, will the hard pressed police have to schedule more late night duties by officers, and seek to cover every drinking place in a town? I can see this being popular with them.

The next stage, I suspect is to ban all drinkers in town centres, because it will be all too easy for friends of drinkers to obtain drinks for them from supermarkets, etc.? So the problem may be dispersed to "trendy" suburbs. Many of the binge drinkers buy, and consume, vast amounts of alcohol from supermarkets and consume it before setting out for hard drinking.

Much more sensible would seem to be the Scottish approach - ban all special offers, happy hours, etc. In addition, many health experts are urging the imposition of a minimum price per unit of alcohol. There would be protests from supermarkets, because it would take away some of their price advantage, but is the health of binge drinkers and the high cost to the NHS not more important than a slight reduction in supermarket profits?