I love dogs, and drinking, and until recently I loved smoking so lifting the bans on the whole lot would be fine by me.

You however would protest vociferously if the smoking ban was lifted. I was actually ok with the smoking ban because I accepted the reality that pub and restaurant stuff did *not* have freedom of exit, as we would prefer them to have in a genuinely liberal society. But I must say, as a mourning ex-smoker, i don’t much care for the way you categorise my dearly departed habit and I can’t help feeling your emotions have more to do with your support of the ban than rationalism.

Furthermore, my mum, for example, is extremely frightened of dogs, and her liberties would certainly be infringed if that ban was lifted. Much though it might puzzle you and I, not everyone loves the lovely doggies.

http://orangebyname.blogspot.com/2007/11/day-3.html

Smoking in public places is one that passes the test. It is a vile, anti-social practice, and injurious to the health and well-being of those subjected to it.

Public drinking is a little different, because bystanders are not actually required to ingest the offending substance.

On balance, I think the ban is unnecessary, for the reasons already discussed in this thread.

A restriction I find wholly offensive and unnecessary is the almost total ban on dogs from enclosed public spaces. What is the justification for this? Dogs are good for us and we live longer if we have one. Tying up dogs outside shops is downright cruel. I long for the day when we can walk into a shopping-centre or a restaurant and be surrounded by dogs once more.

The only difference is that the alcohol ban is noticed by large numbers of people in a relatively minor way, while 42 days without charge will be experienced by relatively few people in an extreme fashion.

In case anyone misunderstood.

I find that incredible- that is the real destruction of liberty being imposed by authority, and libdemvoice is going on about Henley and drinks on the underground.

I am not labour, but labourhome has a very interesting write up on this and EVERY feedback has been against.

Look at the issues that really matter!

Predictably this is because there is nothing to understand. The resurgence is due to resistance, and resistance is due to a lack of combination therapies (either by people taking drugs incorrectly, or by monotherapies – and / or counterfeit or substandard drugs). Resistance is not caused by shagging someone you’re not married to, and, also obviously, TB is not a sexually-transmitted disease. You’re more likely to catch it when a fat man on the tube sneezes on you.

Yours,

Dr Julian H

Yes, I’ve been assigning everyone I meet a type. Next thing it will be fictional charachters…

Furthermore, I don’t deny that the debate is about “whether one term is more significant than another”.

As I said in my 9am post:
“is banning the act of drinking alcohol [on tubes] really an effective and proportionate measure that will further reduce anti-social behaviour on tubes?”

The answer to this is, for me, is no. I suspect that the vast majority of ASB on tubes is caused by people who are already drunk when they board tubes and those who would act in an anti-social manner anyway.

Your response to this seems to be: (1) even if an action is completely ineffectual and unnecessary*, it might be worth it to show we’re listening to people’s concerns, because (2) society needs boundaries and (3) politeness needs to be enforced by the law because we can’t trust people to act in a polite manner.

Here’s the link to join the Conservatives, I think you’ll feel right at home: https://www.conservatives.com/join/ ;o)

*in what ways are the existing laws deficient in preventing alcohol-fuelled ASB on tubes? Anyone who’s drinking on a train and acting anti-socially will already be covered by existing public order legislation.

No, I did know to the contrary (some throwaway remark about buildng software and getting four hours sleep tipped me off).

It was a bad day for liberalism in the People’s Republic yesterday. I met a woman in, perhaps, her early sixties in the course of work who thought the alchol ban was quite right and the protest “ghastly” (which is fine, I’m happy to argue the toss on it) and then having totally ignored all my counter-arguments, facts and figures and repeated the word “ghastly” in response to everything I said, proceeded to share more of her charming views with me as follows:

* Teenagers who are caught with a knife should be imprisoned for life.
* There isn’t enough fear in society. We need to return to a state of fear.
* Unmarried cohabitation is causing a resurgence in the incidence of tuberculosis.

No I don’t understand the last one either. This was a woman, by the way, who is responsible for promoting community engagement in a London borough. The whole experiece made me want to weep. People like that basically *cannot wait* for mission creep to set in. God knows where it would end if it were up to her.

So I suppose I find it disturbing that reasonable people like you lend validity to their arguments and open the way for them to push their extremism, hence the jibe.

Bad laws, in which I include this ban, not only are bad in themselves but hinder the implementation of good laws. Going after everyone who drinks any alcohol at all will require an emormous, expensive police presence and will divert resources away from dealing with the morlocks. (Who can surely get drunk without drinking on the tube, and will probably find ways of circumventing the ban anyway, just as criminals merrily carry guns around without reference to the law while law-abiding citizens are disarmed).

I humbly predict that crime in general will rise under BoJo, due to his divisive, punitive 80s-style policies, which will produce the same soaring crime as Thatcher did (not that the Tories will ever tell you that).

Perhaps overlong, but you know.

Even my rudimentary statistical knowledge suggests to me that there is a correlation between incidences of ASB and drinking in (as oppsed to before entering) the underground. Not 1.00, I grant you, but not zero either as you state.

Yes, but what’s the behaviour that we really don’t want and should not be tolerated? Isn’t it anti-social and drunken behaviour? What have we banned? Drinking on tubes. Are the two things necessarily linked?

No.

As for a gesture to show you understand people’s concerns . . .

In 2006, local Conservatives put round a leaflet where I live stating “the decent majority avoid Wimbledon town centre after 7pm”. Since then they’ve implemented dispersal zones and a cumulative impact zone (the latter to restrict new bars).

As a resident of Wimbledon, I know the “decent majority” stuff is rubbish – but I know there are people that think this. But is the way to respond to this to implement schemes that are actually unnecessary, but look like you’re doing something, or to be brave and challenge the perception.