Chris Maclean: new regime has failed

A headline in my paper claims "Round the clock drinking fuels surge in assaults". Wow.

It seems that there is an increase in violent assaults and that they are happening later at night and are often fuelled by alcohol.

The nice thing about this headline is that it is written in a style suggesting surprise.

Let's put it another way. Now we have new licensing laws there is a change in behaviour and it isn't the change we anticipated.

Well, forgive me but I thought this was a blindingly obvious consequence of extending the hours. Have our politicians never been to any of the Spanish resorts in summer? Talk of the café culture has been largely shaped by a perception of gentle tavernas where our policy-makers are possibly on first name terms with the owner and share a witty comment every morning over their coffee. They seem to fail to distinguish the liberal laws that allow such gentle engagement with the harsher realities of drunken yobbishness. They are both extremes of the same laws.

Is the new Licensing Act a good thing? I really don't think so. The flexibility had always been there. It just strikes me that the new hours allow licensees to compete for the same customers and it simply gifts the larger businesses where the economies of scale work in their favour.

We were told, and indeed the Act specifically states, that the objectives are the prevention of crime and disorder, public safety, the prevention of public nuisance and the protection of children from harm.

On every count there is evidence that the Act has failed.

There are fewer pubs. The licensees that remain earn less money. There is more violence. More drunkenness, more vandalism and more public disorder.

If I, as a businessman, try a new approach to something and it doesn't work I hope I have the courage to admit the failure and to move onwards. I undo any damage I might have caused.

I truly believe this Act has failed and that it cannot measure up to its aspirations.

But I doubt we will get rid of it. Sadly.

And the price of it, I fear, will be continued legislation to remedy problems caused by the original failings. And that is very bad news for the future.