On a Friday night in the City a young professional woman collapses on the floor of the bar where she has been drinking with colleagues. She vomits, then passes out, and when an ambulance crew arrives they are verbally abused by the patient's friends, as the emergency service refuses to turn itself into a chauffeur to take the party home.
"They were horrible," recalls the paramedic called to the scene. "They didn't just want to be taken up the road, they wanted to be transported to the other side of London and were rather abusive when we said we weren't willing."
Speak to any paramedic, A&E worker or policeman and they will regale you with similar tales of weekend calls to assist overly refreshed young women claiming their drink has been spiked (they rarely have, the experts say); or of aiding City bankers who have lost a personal battle with gravity, leaving elderly people waiting for two hours for their ambulance to arrive.
This is all part of a British reality that refuses to conform to the cafe culture: the ideal that was supposed to emerge following the relaxation of UK licensing laws. It comes at a time when there is a civil war within the drinks industry, not to mention the battles outside it, about what to do with what most view as a serious problem. Meanwhile, both Scottish and Westminster legislators are fighting for the future of their respective solutions, following assaults from drinks lobbyists and lawyers.
By the end of this month, a new wave of alcohol promotions will be launched in supermarkets targeting Christmas pay packets. That big push should coincide with the long-awaited launch of a Home Office consultation on how to implement government plans to enforce a minimum charge per unit of alcohol. And, in January, a delayed judicial review will attack Scotland's more advanced moves to legislate to increase the prices of the cheapest alcohol being sold in supermarkets and off-licences.
The challenge in Scotland has been spearheaded by the Scotch Whisky Association – a trade body whose policy-making council is dominated by major drinks groups such as Johnnie Walker-owner Diageo, Pernod Ricard's Chivas Regal and Edrington, the home of Famous Grouse. Meanwhile, EU wine producers, concerned about how their exports to Britain will be hit, have launched their own campaign in Europe, albeit one that caused eyebrows to arch when the initial objection came from the seemingly unlikely quarter of Bulgaria. Conspiracy theorists even pondered if the former communist state challenged British policy with the assistance of the global drinks industry lobby.
The Bulgarian embassy declines to comment on that theory, although a spokeswoman for SABMiller, the brewer behind 86 beer and cider brands, including Peroni Nastro Azzurro, is more forthcoming. She explains: "Working with recognised industry trade bodies across Europe, SABMiller has sought to present the facts about minimum pricing. In such an important public policy debate, it's vital that governments and regulators understand the unintended consequences that might ensue from what the UK government acknowledged is little more than an experiment."
However, despite the objections, the Home Office insists it will be launching its consultation this autumn. "The government is committed to the introduction of a minimum unit price," a spokesman says. "The proposal has the backing of the Royal College of Physicians and the Association of Chief Police Officers and could mean 50,000 fewer crimes and around 900 fewer alcohol-related deaths per year by the end of the decade."
These health and crime statistics are the typical arguments presented by those who favour minimum pricing, and they frequently draw from research conducted by Sheffield University. The academics' latest update in January stated that "increasing levels of minimum pricing show steep increases in effectiveness", especially when combined with a ban on "price-based promotion, including straight discounting from list price in addition to multi-buy offers". Introducing a 50p minimum unit price, the research predicts, would cause consumption to fall by 5.7%, or 7.8% if combined with a promotion ban.
However, it is not quite as simple as that. Those opposing the plans predictably hint at alleged flaws in the Sheffield report, and suggest minimum pricing would not work in reality in the way the model suggests, and that we are already drinking less as a nation. But while the arguments are obvious, those lining up on each side of the debate are not.
The Portman Group, the drink industry lobbyist that includes Diageo, Carlsberg and Heineken among its members, is twitchy about discussing the issue at all, as its members cannot agree on the topic. One, Molson Coors, has publicly stated that it broadly supports the proposals.
Meanwhile pub groups, which casual observers might expect to welcome the move as most of their alcohol is already priced higher than suggested thresholds, are also split.
Rooney Anand – the chief executive of pub operator and brewer Greene King, and one of the more outspoken supporters of the policy – argues: "It is time to take decisive and targeted action in the fight against the worsening relationship with alcohol that we see in Britain today." Few disagree with that sentiment, but colleagues within his own industry still vehemently oppose minimum pricing.
One is Tim Martin, the candid chairman of JD Wetherspoon, who believes the whole policy is a political PR stunt.
"[Minimum pricing is] nuts," he says. "It is obfuscation by trying to pretend that the government is dealing with the issue. All that will happen from a pub's point of view is that the tax inequality [when compared with supermarkets] will remain. Tax equality between pubs and supermarkets would be much more effective than minimum pricing. [Minimum pricing] is a placebo that won't have any effect on the underlying problem. It's utter bollocks, basically. If you want people to pay more for their beer, there is one solution: get them to go to pubs. The problem with Cameron and Osborne is they haven't worked in a fucking pub."
The supermarkets, which are widely blamed for allowing young drinkers to "pre-load" on cheap booze before hitting the nightclubs, argue their case in slightly less colourful language. Even so, they cannot find much common ground.
Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury's have all come out against the government introducing a price floor, yet the biggest of them all – Tesco – is broadly in favour. That split generates all sorts of theories about motives.
Some industry watchers argue that a minimum price per unit would actually benefit supermarkets, as their buying power means they will not have to pass profit increases from higher prices on to suppliers. Equally, others say that supermarkets would be hit, as they would be unable to attract shoppers with cheap booze deals (although supermarkets deny that they discount alcohol to drive trade) who might then have gone on to buy more profitable products.
Richard Dodd, head of campaigns at the British Retail Consortium, says: "It is certainly possible that retailers end up selling products that were previously cheaper at a higher price, which makes the stance [against minimum pricing] even more principled."
If one piece of common ground exists, it seems to be this: when it comes to Britain's out-of-control drinking culture, some one needs to call time, gentlemen and ladies, please.
