Make mine a large one

Don't be fooled by the Government's lukewarm reception to Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson's loony scheme to have a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol.

I suspect that it is only Gordon Brown's instinct for self preservation - he does not want to end his premiership swinging from a lamp post - that has pushed the plan on to the back burner - for now.

I have said before that booze is much cheaper in the rest of Europe than in Britain and ask again why do the rest of Europe not have to put up with running the gauntlet of drunken yobs and yobettes or having to dance the vomit polka to travel through the streets in the centres of their towns and cities at weekends?

There are plenty of laws already in place to return city centres to some semblance of civilisation, drunk and disorderly for starters, but that involves action, extra proper police, court time and some cost so don't hold your breath on that one.

An increase in the price of booze will have a marginal if any effect on drunken behaviour but that is not the point. It has the attraction of bringing in much needed revenue at a time when income from taxes is in freefall.

If the Government felt they could have sneaked it in at 50p you can guarantee - for our own good mind - it would soon be going up like duty, a couple of pence here and there and then up every year in line with inflation plus three per cent or whatever.

And don't discount the brewers in all this. Pub and club prices are all way above 50p a unit so any increase they sneak in on the price rise bandwagon is pure profit and they are hardly going to be upset if their competitors, the supermarkets and off licences, are forced into hefty price increases. Make it more expensive to drink at home and people might just go to the pub.