I found Newcastle City Centre as scary as Beirut, where I did go to, so both, done it.

‘Central Newcastle: Highest number of violent attacks – ranging from common assault to murder – with 236.5 per 1,000 residents.’

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1119896.stm

That’s impressive.

Gregory

Sadly I think the answer to the question posed in the title is a simple “Yes”, at least for the moment. Politicians will unfortunately never relax their paternalism until we prove to them that we are capable of making our own decisions and behaving responsibly.

So maybe we need to start with a grassroots campaign against the social acceptance of moronic drunkenness? If people want to get sozzled in private that’s up to them but there must be some standards of of behaviour towards other people in public that are adhered to. Not attacking people randomly would be a good start.

(Just so this is not misconstrued, I’m sure no one on this thread behaves like that. But clearly many people do – two people I know have suffered from alcohol-fuelled violence, and one of them was badly injured in the head. He has lost his hearing in one ear permanently and has trouble with his sense of balance because of his injury.)

No Gregory, fuckwits have done that. I got royally shit faced twice this weekend, and I didn’t even go into a town centre.

Also I take issue with the repetition of the idiot phrase “no go zone” where it is being used to describe a zone where, in fact, many people do go.

You might not go there, but large numbers of other people seem to find it extremely desirable to do just that.

No indeed, witness this select committee report, which really gives it away :

We believe that drugs policy should primarily be addressed to dealing with the 250,000 problematic drug users (paragraph 38).

Now the police, and other concerned citizens, are sending the hopelessly inebriated home in taxis

I think we are talking about another species – have aliens been breeding among us?

‘We’ have..?

Alcohol has made dozens of town centres in Britain into no-go areas and costs the NHS billions.

With Amsterdam, it was the abolition of marriage, coupledom, gender and sexual dichotomy. Which may not have cost a drop in takings.

The drug thing on the other hand, was wild, & everybody was getting shot, or run out of town. Amsterdam became a gang city.

One of the reasons Amsterdam has a crap Gay Pride, is nobody worth talking to stayed.