Reporting from the frontline

The war on alcohol continues. While Prime Minister Gordon Brown appears to have his sights set on supermarket sales, the tabloid press haven't given up their crusade against pubs and bars.

Publication of the latest crime figure gave national newspapers all the excuse they needed to return to a favoured theme. 'Call time on the folly of all-day drinking' was the Daily Mail's unambiguous call.

The basis of the outrage was a reported increase, some would call it a surge, in alcohol-related crime, particularly between the early hours of 3am and 6am.

'Well surprise, surprise,' screamed the Mail's comment column. 'From the moment New Labour sold its soul to the brewers and distillers with its crass plans for all-hours drinking, it was warned again and again of the inevitable consequences.'

Exactly what were they? The Mail continued: 'Since then, the number of violent attacks by drunks has risen by 64,000, to 1,087,000. That works out at one every 30 seconds. Before the Licensing Act, such offences were actually in decline.'

Apart from that, however, the Mail column was pretty thin on facts. Those were actually the only figures quoted from the report in question, the Home Office's Crime in England and Wales 2006/07 survey. The Mail's last assertion about offences falling before the Act is true, but the level of 2006/07 offences is still lower than 2004/05 and every year before that.

But why should the Daily Mail let that get in the way of a good rant? You should read it. It's still there on the website ' www.dailymail.co.uk .

The statistics, which can be found in the report, paint a rather different picture. Not a particularly rosy one, but certainly not as apocalyptic as the press would portray.

The authors conclude that the numbers of more serious violent crimes actually fell in the year after the introduction of the Licensing Act in November 2005 compared with the previous year. The decreases occurred mainly in the evening hours before midnight, but wit h increases between 3am and 6am.

There was also a fall in less serious wounding offences in the year after the Act, against an increase prior to the Act.

Although there was some increase in offences between the hours of 3am and 6am, the report makes the point that they account for only a small proportion of the 24-hour total, in fact just 4%.

The authors say the rise in the early hours is likely to reflect both the change in the closing hours of licensed premises and the increased number of people out at these times, as well as the greater police resources being placed on the streets to deal with disorder.

They also add that there was no overall percentage change in the number of assault without injury offences in the night-time period. Importantly, it shows that the victims of crime that believed the offender or offenders to be under the influence of alcohol remained the same.

If there is one conclusion to be drawn, it is that licensing reform seems to have no appreciable effect on crime figures, no matter what the Daily Mail might say.

The trouble is that the Daily Mail cannot be ignored. It is an increasingly influential newspaper now rivalling the Sun as a gauge of public opinion, or at least a portion of the public.

Gordon Brown has now said that he may review licensing laws. Reassuringly, perhaps, he commented: 'Let's look at the evidence, and then let's see what the experience has been.' According to The Observer, a crackdown on supermarkets that sell cheap drink to young people is more likely to be Brown's target. However, this is the man that has already put the boot into gambling reform.

Alcohol is a battleground and public opinion and perceptions are important in this ' as is the press' role in forging them.

A good example is the study at one London hospital, St Thomas's, that showed a three-fold increase in alcohol-related medical emergencies. There is a suggestion from within the hospital that much of this is down to migrant workers from eastern Europe. Whatever, it is still a problem. The danger, however, is that this research is now being used to apply to the country as a whole ' in no less a paper than the Daily Mail.

Remember that Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson is already calling for a rise in tax on alcohol. There is a war out there. Make no mistake.

first published in M&C Report, August, 2007