Last Round on the Underground

[Cobbydaler]

Wasn't BBKing attending this?

Hope he didn't get caught up in the trouble...

Link

Originally Posted by The BBC

Six London Underground stations were closed as trouble flared when thousands of people marked the banning of alcohol on London transport with a party.
Four tube drivers, three other staff members, and two police officers were assaulted, and there were 17 arrests.

[papa smurf]

" It's sweaty on there but I'm going round and round until I vomit "

......... not quite my idea of fun. wonder if bb is still going around and round and round

[injuneer]

people just can't hold their drink in this country, we're a bunch of wimps!

[BBKing]

Hope he didn't get caught up in the trouble...

I steered clear - by the time we left the pub (with a bottle of lager each) and got to London Bridge tube the board was showing the lines affected, so we stuck to the Northern Line and then Piccadilly. Both full to standing, no trouble whatsoever. I saw plenty of people dressed up on the way into town though, and I expected rather more than 17 arrests given the numbers. So I finished my beer, got off the train and got a kebab.

wonder if bb is still going around and round and round

Bit of a headache and I need a cup of tea.

[Raistlin]

Sad isn't it?

Nice Idea: Mark the banning of alcohol on the London Underground by having a party

Ruined By: Morons that have got nothing better to do than get trashed out of their tiny little minds and cause trouble for everybody else

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by Raistlin

Sad isn't it?

Nice Idea: Mark the banning of alcohol on the London Underground by having a party

Ruined By: Morons that have got nothing better to do than get trashed out of their tiny little minds and cause trouble for everybody else

I think it's sadder that we seem to be sleep walking into a police state but there you go

[Vlad_Dracul]

Forgive me if i've misunderstood but i hadn't realised that London Underground was a premise or location licensed for the consumption of alcohol. Last time i was in London i was on the underground and didnt notice any bars or bottle openers fastened to the hand rails.

It seems obvious to me that public transport of any kind is not an appropriate place for the consumption of alcohol.

As for this fiasco,only in backward Britain would it be tolerated.

As far as I am concerned those involved should have been flogged off the train and put behind bars until they could appear in court,thus leaving the trains for ordinary civilised people to go about their business AND allow rail staff to work without fear of intimidation and assault.

[boroboi]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

I think it's sadder that we seem to be sleep walking into a police state but there you go

Just watch America then. It'll happen there first. We've turned into the "51st state" so it wont take long after.

[BBKing]

Forgive me if i've misunderstood

Forgiven.

a) licenses are for *sale* of alcohol, not its consumption. I'm currently enjoying a nice refreshing lager after my Sunday roast, and I don't need a bloody license from some interfering bureaucrat to do that. Tescos, however, needed a license to sell it to me.

b) This being Britain and a free country with a long tradition of liberty, one of our main legal principles is that things are legal unless there's an explicit law against. In the case of the Tube, there was no law against drinking and you were free to consume alcohol. Obviously being drunk and disorderly or vandalising the train was already illegal, as was assaulting a member of staff (which they tend to take very seriously, and the assaults last night aren't going to help Boris get Tube staff onside as his front-line troops against this imaginary wave of crime).

As for this fiasco,only in backward Britain would it be tolerated.

Er, no. It's happened in several other places, too, notably Moscow. In other countries, however, it's quite normal to see people drinking on the way home from work, IIRC you could indeed buy beer on the station platform at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof when I lived there, and it was common to see stout German businessmen cracking open a can to relax on the way home. Mind you, cannabis possession was legal too. Free country, d'ye see?

[Vlad_Dracul]

BBKING spake thus >b) This being Britain and a free country with a long tradition of liberty, one of our main legal principles is that things are legal unless there's an explicit law against

BB you are pushing at an open door here.

Unfortunately the principle to which you refer seems rather etheral and even if it were so,its general acceptance as a principle would be counterbalanced by a generally accepted standard of morality and behaviour which may have existed in the past but now,sadly,is not quite so prevalent.

Hence the need for explicit legislation.

i.e in the past there may not have been an explicit law against drinking in public but most right minded people would have considered it bad form,bad mannered and unacceptable. Now its mob rule,do as you like so we HAVE to legislate.

Unfortunatly legislation and enforcement are two different matters.

The train drivers should have walked out instead of being complicit in this vulgar and unruly display.

Has any research actually been done into the amount of crime that occurs on the Tube that could be alcohol-related?

I know there are figures floating about stating that 40% of violent crime in London is alcohol related, but are there any specific figures for the Tube? (just wondering if there is any sound basis for the new law, or was it just a knee-jerk publicity stunt?).

Originally Posted by Vlad_Dracul

BBKING spake thus >b) This being Britain and a free country with a long tradition of liberty, one of our main legal principles is that things are legal unless there's an explicit law against

BB you are pushing at an open door here.

Unfortunately the principle to which you refer seems rather etheral and even if it were so,its general acceptance as a principle would be counterbalanced by a generally accepted standard of morality and behaviour which may have existed in the past but now,sadly,is not quite so prevalent.

Hence the need for explicit legislation.

i.e in the past there may not have been an explicit law against drinking in public but most right minded people would have considered it bad form,bad mannered and unacceptable. Now its mob rule,do as you like so we HAVE to legislate.

Unfortunatly legislation and enforcement are two different matters.

The train drivers should have walked out instead of being complicit in this vulgar and unruly display.

Well my problem with all the latest nannyesque banning of everything 'bad' is where does it stop?I'm also severely annoyed that because of the actions of small groups of the wider community the majority are slowly having their freedom eroded in the interest of the public good.If I choose to drink a can of lager on the bus why not provided I annoy no one and am not drunk and incapable?It's not as if doing so is illegal and the implication that I can't behave myself and control my behaviour really,really pees me off.

The sort of law that gave rise to the one only rule in china re the law about only being allowed to have one child.This led in turn to forced abortions/exposure/abandoned baby girl death wards all of which have been argued to be for the good of the Chinese people.

I know it seems a small issue but if we don't fight for the small issues in life what happens when we arrive at removing rather more important freedoms,such as the right to legal representation when charged for some minor nanny banned infringement, like chewing gum, on the grounds that gum is bad for the environment?

[Julian]

I don't remember there being a "last ciggy tour" when smoking was banned on the tubes...

This was always going to end in tears.

Originally Posted by Julian

I don't remember there being a "last ciggy tour" when smoking was banned on the tubes...

This was always going to end in tears.

Probably but how many who attended the event didn't get arrested and didn't cause any trouble what so ever?

[BBKing]

if there is any sound basis for the new law

Boris himself had to announce another substantial drop in crime on public transport recently (stemming from Livingstone era policies, of course), so you can argue that changing a status quo which current policing and enforcement strategies were demonstrably working in favour of one where the police get extra duties for a problem that was unquantified is bad policy straight off the bat. Do you take coppers off the anti-robbery and staff assault initiatives to patrol near-empty tube trains in case someone's hiding a can of Stella? Do you take money from existing budgets to pay for more policemen to patrol near-empty....etc.? None of this seems to have been thought through.

Of course, it wasn't really Boris' policy at all - he has an unhappy habit of listening to people*, taking what they say at face value and then making it policy without regard to justifiability, cost or effect. In the case of the booze ban, the Sun (which backed him, obviously, having backed Blair and Blunkett for years when they were banning things left right and centre) got hold of it, so the early announcement resulted in some good headlines.

The RMT, incidentally, was unusually spot on with its initial response to the ban, they welcomed anything that would make their members safer, but queried the timing. The resulting assaults on their members give them something of a talking point when it comes to being consulted in future (they weren't consulted at all on the original ban).

* While it's good for politicians to listen to people, he only ever seems to listen to right wing think tanks and suburban Londoners and appears incapable of analysing the opinions he's received. A lot of his policies are therefore obviously unworkable or based on dangerously flawed data, like the bendy bus non-issue.

i.e in the past there may not have been an explicit law against drinking in public but most right minded people would have considered it bad form,bad mannered and unacceptable

Eh? Have you any conception of the part drink has played in British history? I suspect not, or you wouldn't be parroting the classic Tory 'back-to-the-1950s' line about 'standards of morality and behaviour'. We've *always* been a drinking country, we're famous for it. We write songs about it. We've probably got more slang about drinking and being drunk than Eskimos have words for snow. What about the gin epidemic in the 18th century? What about kids drinking small beer (because it was safer than water, obviously)? What about the Royal Navy ruling the waves on rum, sodomy and the lash? What about the thousands of pubs and breweries up and down the country? What about the Scots and whisky?

What will you ban next? I spent last night sitting at a table on a South London street outside a pub enjoying a few pints of London Pride and good conversation - should I make the most of it because that'll surely be next if the country is really full of 'right-minded' self-righteous morlocks, killjoys and puritans who think such a pleasant way of passing the time is 'bad form,bad mannered and unacceptable'. Pshaw.