'How they waste your money: Council employs professional actors to play drunks in bars'

They stumbled around, slurred and headed for the bar to order another drink. The scenario may sound familiar, but these were not your average weekend drunks. They were undercover investigators engaged in a £4,000 initiative by a group of cash-strapped local organisations to check that pubs were serving alcohol responsibly. Details emerged yesterday in papers documenting the operation, which was organised by Conwy and Denbighshire Community Safety Partnership. The three 'professional witnesses', two men and a woman, were hired from a private surveillance company to play the fake drunks - Daily Mail ​

Binge drinking turns alcohol into bigger killer of the working class than the well off over the last 100 years, say scientists. Researchers found cirrhosis of the liver claimed twice as many lives among middle and upper class people at the start of the 20th Century. However, the scientists say that the illness is now twice as big a threat to the lower classes as alcohol consumption patterns shifted in the latter part of the century - Daily Mail ​

Pubs in England and Wales will be allowed to stay open longer for the royal wedding, ministers are expected to announce. Landlords will be able to extend their opening hours up to 0100 BST across two nights without needing permission from local licensing authorities. Prince William and Kate Middleton are due to get married at Westminster Abbey on Friday 29 April - BBC​

Sometimes all your Christmases come at once. Not long ago Diageo was all cashed-up with nowhere to go; now the liquor landscape no longer looks quite so dry. In late October LVMH, the luxury goods group, revealed a 17 per cent stake in Hermes. That raised a tentative question mark over the future of its stake in Moët Hennessy. Increasing the Hermes holding could mean liquidating another asset, and the drinks group, 34 per cent held by Diageo, would be an obvious candidate - Financial times​