Off licence alcohol purchases - minimum age 21

At last, some small attempt to rein-in the alcoholisation of the young, even if only in Scotland.

Michael White confuses matters by yoking this good horse to a bad one (morning-after pills for the underaged). Nevertheless, I wonder if we might make progress in this direction, as with smoking, but perhaps in a different way. as it's not just the young who have drink problems.

I think availability is a key factor. Imagine having a beer (or other tipple of your choice) tap next to each cold-water tap in the home - who could resist? Yet alcohol is nearly as accessible these days - supermarkets, post offices, even petrol stations. Rather than try to enforce an age limit (another pile of arrest records to write), let's try to remove some of the temptation: let's reduce the number of off-licences.

My preferred solution would be not to renew the liquor licence for a supermarket if there is an alternative outlet within a certain distance. Supermarket shelving has a narrative all its own - and booze is near the end so we can say to ourselves or our partners, "Shall we?" "Go on, then." It's a cunningly-positioned add-on to household shopping, encouraging the potentially dangerous habit of steady home drinking.

Is it OK to have principles?

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis resigns his Parliamentary seat to fight a by-election on the issue of civil liberty in Britain, and Michael White in the Guardian plays the sneering curmudgeon; parti pris?

UPDATE

Someone put the text of Mr Davis' speech as a comment to Michael White's piece. Here are a couple of extracts:

This Counter Terrorism Bill will in all likelihood be rejected by the House of Lords... But because the impetus behind it is political, the government will be tempted to use the Parliament Act...
It has no democratic mandate to do this...

... I am just a piece in this chess game.

Folly? Vanity? My eye (and Betty Martin).