London Mayor, Boris Johnson, has talked of plans to follow the footsteps of Scottish retailers in the district of West Lothian who now have the right refuse the sale of alcohol to anybody under 21. The pilot scheme was said to account for a 50% decline in alcohol related disorder, hinting at a potential aide in targeting the British binge-drinking culture. Johnson has backed the plan for the scheme to take place in the London borough of Croydon but was noted saying at the Mayor’s Question Time in July, “after Croydon, I would like to see this applied across London.”
However, the threat to the rest of Britain’s under-21 population is strong as the authorities attempt to tackle anti-social behaviour in towns, particularly of the North West where binge-drinking is at its worst and statistics suggest 29% of people in the region drink at hazardous or harmful levels of alcohol.

With such measures requiring little time to fall into place, the prospect of a Fresher’s week with no alcohol sold to under 21 year olds may not be such a farfetched one for students next year.

It is potential that increasing the legal drinking age could just mystify alcohol and push teenagers to find alternative means of obtaining alcohol or partaking in other illegal recreational activities. For example. the traditional French concept that teenagers and children should be familiarised with alcohol has also proved unsatisfactory.

There, adolescents are introduced to alcohol under parental guidance and are of age to buy wine and beer, but not spirits, from cafes, restaurants and off-licences at 16. Though since the release of figures that show a 50% rise in the amount of under-24s treated in hospital linked with alcohol from 2004 to 2007, French Health Minister, Roselyene Bachelot has announced plans to ban the sale of alcohol to under-18s next year.

Griggs’ grumble: This policy is outrageous. However my thoughts are not governed by the implications of a dried-out fresher’s week – although it is slightly un-nerving, but by the fact that the propositions of our politicians, our leaders, are to supposedly amend Britain’s social drinking problem by placing a restriction on alcohol sales!

For me, it’s not the policy that is really my issue here, but their poor reasoning behind it. What kind of warped logic insists that by changing the age limit we have a direct solution to a principally social problem? The drinking in my view is simply an effect of the greater problem binge culture, of which the government needs to address at its roots, and not to legislate a big fat, authoritarian restriction. Ultimately, this short-term policy makes me feel ambivalent about having faith in government decisions, when they are guided by such a seemingly shallow understanding of the fundamental problem that is binge drinking.

Danielle Mensah