John Porter: Small beer

This would be the same government that is incapable of teaching a large percentage of the population how to read and write, can't work out that if you don't invest in cleaning hospitals properly people will leave sicker than when they arrive, and can't come up with a border control system capable of the basic checks needed to establish that new arrivals to our rainbow nation aren't murderers, pimps or drug dealers.

And, oh yes, hasn't worked out yet that once you own a big chunk of the financial system, it's no longer necessary to brown-nose (or darling-nose) the worthless, greedy, thieving reptiles who run the banks.

Yet, despite the many real problems it faces, the government is taking a keen interest in my parenting policy. Children under 15 should not be allowed to drink alcohol, we're told. Full stop.

Given that I have two children over 15 and two under, I straddle the divide quite neatly. I have, I fear, failed to comply with Sir Liam's advice so far, and at the risk of prompting a visit from social services, don't plan to do so in the future.

I grew up in a home where there was no stigma attached to alcohol. My dad needed little prompting to crack open a bottle of rioja and my mum came from an Irish family who believed that Guinness was the most natural source of goodness known to mankind, and could safely be consumed at any and every meal . And for the record, both my maternal grandparents lasted until well into their 80s.

I've tried to bring up my kids with the same attitudes. My oldest son, who's almost 20, admittedly likes a Malibu and Coke, which is something of a worry to his mum and me. I did persuade him to have a pint of Spitfire recently, which he professed to enjoy, so hopefully the Malibu thing is just a phase.

As for the others - well, let's talk about New Year's Eve. We spent it with three other couples, all of us having children of similar ages. The adults did imbibe a certain amount, enough for us to totally embarrass our offspring with an impromptu celebration of Motown's 50th anniversary. I believe the dads' rendition of 'I Want You Back' by the Jackson 5, led by me in the role of Michael, can still be found on YouTube, thanks to covert use of a camera phone by one of the kids.

My 17 year old daughter drank a couple of alcopops over the course of the evening - which presumably would cause Sir Liam to purse his lips disapprovingly, but is just about within his guidelines. The deal was that any child over 14 could have a glass of champagne at midnight. Some of them hated it, some of them liked it. One 14-year-old boy - not one of mine, but I have a son the same age - downed a glass of champagne, half a bottle of electric blue alcopop and was promptly sick on the carpet. His mother was mortified, and gave me a serious stare in the entirely correct assumption that I was the one who'd bought the bright blue beverage to the party.

The rest of us, though, including his dad, recognised that he'd learnt an important lesson about drinking, in a very safe environment.

I know there is a problem with underage drinking in this country. I'd argue that much of it is a problem of politicians' own making. The rush to dish out bar licences in town centres back in the 90s to replace business rates lost to retail parks, failure to regulate supermarket sales, and draconian enforcement of the legal drinking age all play a part.

It is not a problem that will be resolved by demonising alcohol. Prohibition, the only solution that will satisfy the anti-alcohol lobby which has undue influence in some areas of policy, doesn't work. Crediting parents with common sense might seem shocking to some politicians, but maybe it's worth a try.