Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

The demon drink

You'll remember how, when a couple of people's deaths (through drinking, methadone and mephedrone) happened, the Mail were quick to blame... mephedrone.

And when the number of crimes proceeded against in Nottinghamshire vaguely linked to Facebook went up from three to six, the Mail panicked about... Facebook.

So when half of all violent crimes are linked to alcohol, the Mail blames... Labour.

Obviously. The most tenuous of evidence linking Facebook to crime is greedily gobbled up; the inconclusive links from mephedrone to deaths is reported as 'playing Russian roulette'; but solid links between alcohol and crime? That must be Labour's fault, then. And oh look, it's election time, well that's quite handy, isn't it?

Now I'm not saying that so-called '24-hour drinking' - a myth that doesn't seem to exist anywhere except in the minds of pearl-clutching Mail readers and journos - has been a spectacular success. And if there's evidence it's doing harm, then I'm happy to be swayed. But this article from James 'the relationship between what I claim to be telling you and reality is pretty' Slack is nothing of the sort.

A secret Government report has revealed the mayhem caused by Labour's disastrous 24-hour drinking policy.

Ministers hoped the introduction of round-the- clock licensing would reduce violence and lead to the creation of a 'relaxed, continental cafe style culture' on the nation's streets.

But the leaked report reveals that nearly half - 47 per cent - of all violent crimes are cited as alcohol-related by victims.

OK, so what you might be expecting now is a comparison between figures after '24-hour drinking' and before. To see if things have improved or deteriorated. Surely. Otherwise you couldn't possibly claim it was 'Labour's disastrous 24-hour drinking policy', could you?

Well, you could, of course, if you're Slack. And besides, it's not a Mail story because they give a shit about crime victims; it's that horrible, dirty public sector pay that's the problem!

In a further embarrassment for ministers, a second study revealed the cost of policing Labour's late-night drinking economy is adding £100million to the police overtime bill.

Which would appear to be a fail, but it's only a fail if you assume crime has gone up - which Slack does, and which the 'secret' dossier may well say for all I know, but there's no evidence in the article if it does. Might we be prepared to pay for more police overtime if crime was less? Do we really want to go back to 'chucking-out-time' and being forced to go to a shit nightclub if you want to drink past 11.01pm?

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'It's now clear that behind the scenes the Government has finally realised what everyone else knows - that our town and city centres have taken a real turn for the worse as a result of Labour's 24-hour drinking laws - and that alcohol is now a major cause of crime and antisocial behaviour.

'So why have they done so little to get to grips with the problem? We really do need new leadership if we are to fight back against crime.'

You'll forgive me for not giving a shit about what Chris Grayling has to say about anything. Long before he got caught out over the weekend, he'd been rebuked in Parliament for misleading use of figures. But his quote up there is a wearying taste of what we've got coming up in the election: it says nothing, it adds nothing, it's a simple piece of poo-throwing. They're bad, we'll be different. No how or why; just they're bad, we'll be different.

If there is a secret report that says relaxed drinking laws have made things worse, then let's see it. But we don't see it. We get James Slack saying that he's seen it, and that it does say that, without providing any proof. For all I know it might say "Yes, we fucked up" in big capital letters on the front cover. But I would have expected, if it did contain such an admission of culpability, at least a quote saying that, rather than a figure about crime with no relationship to what the situation was like before, or anything like that.

But then this isn't about what's really to blame. When you can slightly link mephedrone, go big on it; say it's Russian roulette and deadly. When you can slightly link Facebook to crime, go big on it, and call things the 'Facebook murder', say Facebook ruined your children's lives, say all of that. When alcohol is linked to violent crime, don't blame alcohol - blame Labour. It's election time, and that's what we're going to get.

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