Intermission: Rage.
BoJo pretends to be a liberal Conservative. He’s transparently not; first, he banned alcohol on public transport, and now he wants to restrict access by under-21s to it. Thus:
Young adults will be banned from buying alcohol in shops under a scheme being backed by Mayor Boris Johnson.
Off-licence owners are to be asked to stop selling drink to under-21s, even though they are legally entitled to buy it at 18.
The voluntary scheme will start in Croydon and is likely to be rolled out across London.
Mr Johnson said that it was the type of solution that Londoners would welcome to the “huge problem” of binge-drinking by the young.
Let’s explore what this actually means. BoJo wants the state to encourage shops to actively discriminate against a group of adults on the basis of a factor beyond their control. That group has the legal rights of every other age-group - and potentially has done for three years.
And, of course, it won’t work. 18-21 year olds have been drinking for as long as can be remembered, and show no desire to stop. They’ve quite possibly been drinking since before their 18th birthday, and most will know how to get alcohol without the state’s consent. So, it won’t eliminate drinking; it’ll simply drive it underground, beyond any reasonable hope of regulation.
So - discriminatory, ineffective and generally illiberal. 18-21 year old are adults with full legal rights and who pay taxes - and yet BoJo wants to treat them like children. He’s not a liberal. He’s a disgusting paternalist willing to sacrifice the rights of a minority for populism’s sake.
Populism? With this, I think Johnson can kiss goodbye to the “Yay, Boris, wot a LEGERRRRND!” brigade.
I think he’d already lost them.
If I was wrong, though, then he unquestionably pulled it off this time.
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