Editorial - Booze blues

The Guardian, Tuesday November 11 2008

In A Hero of Our Time, Lermontov's classic novel from 1841, a Russian captain asks: "It was the French, I suppose, who made boredom fashionable?" No, comes the reply: it was the English. "Ah, so that's it!" says the old army man. "They've always been habitual drunks!"

When it comes to drinking, this country evidently has form. And yet reading yesterday's report from a committee of MPs it is hard not to think that, at least over the short term, things have got a lot worse. In a report that looks at the challenges facing British police, alcohol is listed alongside gun and knife crime as one of the biggest problems. The usual alarming statistics are published - that drink-related crime and crime prevention now costs police over £7bn a year (and costs the NHS more than a £1bn a time) - but the most worrying passage is from a note by Chief Constable Stephen Green of Nottinghamshire. The drinks industry "has stretched policing to the absolute limits", he writes. "The whole focus of officer shift patterns is to deploy sufficient resources at weekends to cope with alcohol-fuelled disorder and football violence .
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