A Chorus Of Booze
‘BRITAIN is being turned into a ”revolting and dangerous” place by football-loving ”urban savages” for whom fighting is a way of life.
| ”Oi, get out of my pint!” |
So warns a certain Judge Charles Harris on the front page of this morning’s Express.
And no, he wasn’t talking about the scrap between Newcastle United fan Tony Blair and his neighbour Gordon Brown, a Raith Rovers supporter.
He was talking about ”the substantial proportion of young people today who drink in excess, take drugs and if possible watch football”.
”This,” concludes our bewigged friend, ”reduces you to a state of mindless aggression and you focus on people who you attack or fight or rob.”
Admittedly, watching Steven Gerrard’s back pass or David James’s rash challenge on Thierry Henry in the last minute of England’s Euro 2004 defeat to France was enough to push anyone to violence.
Most of us, however, managed to get through it with no more damage caused than a bruised cushion or a scared cat.
Not so three yobs who went on the rampage that night in Kettering town centre, as a result of which they found themselves in front of Judge Harris yesterday for sentencing.
”People, or people like you, are making the towns of England revolting and dangerous places at night,” the judge told the defendants.
”It is being assisted by legislation to make alcohol available at all times of the day and night.”
Ah, so that’s the problem – it’s the Government’s fault, which is of course why the story makes the front page of the Express.
People in almost every other country in Europe can, it seems, be trusted to have a drink when they want one, but not us here in Britain.
They drink a lot more than us in France, for instance, but they don’t have the same problems with drunkenness and violence associated with binge drinking.
Why not? Perhaps because they don’t have to cram a whole night’s drinking into about two hours?
Just a thought the good judge might like to consider while he’s enjoying a late-night bottle of claret at his holiday house in Provence…’
Posted: 11th, January 2005 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
