Fresh on the gloriously statist prohibition of smoking in private places comes yet another threat from so-called paternalistic authoritarians: this time, in the form of an attack on alcohol. Blaring out from the front page of Wednesday’s Times is a stark warning that a high-ranking police officer wants to increase the drinking age to 21.

Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Cheshire (condolences to students from Cheshire), yesterday advocated the change, citing the murder of a man in Warrington (condolences to anyone from Warrington) as proof that society is going to hell in a hand basket. Apparently, some small-brained big-wig in the Home Office agrees ‘with the substance’ of Fahy’s proposals.

But we expect that from this government (or should that be just ‘government’?). More depressing is the fact that the Times, supposedly a newspaper of record and historically a classical liberal outlet, seems to be whole-heartedly in favour, and doesn’t pull any punches in its front-page would-be editorial. It doesn’t even bother to present any alternative opinions: reams of statistics will do. And what statistics they are.

Apparently,

Among 35 European countries, the UK has the third-highest proportion of 15-year-olds — 24 per cent — who have been drunk ten times or more in the past year.

But 15-year olds are already prohibited from buying alcohol, and wouldn’t be affected by the move; the only people affected are those over 18, i.e. adults that are old enough to get married without parental permission, vote, and give their lives at war.

Alcohol also now costs 54 per cent less in real terms than it did in 1980. Doctors and campaigners have called on the Government to drive up prices, while voicing growing concern at the increase in the strength of beer and wine.

What immoral and heartless monster dares argue with doctors and campaigners (read: ‘concerned mothers’, but actually randomers that sign e-petitions)?

However, The Times has learnt that ministers have ruled out including the question of higher taxation in a review…

Ah, so a petulant government minister does. Fortunately, he’s in good company. As a 20-year old with an exhorbitantly high drinks bill as it is, I find myself on that side of supposedly indefensibility. But I’m not alone, and, for the past century and a half, have found myself sipping cognac with my friend Frédéric Bastiat, who wrote in my bank account’s defence:

Which is preferable for man and for society, abundance or scarcity? … How can there be any question about it? Has anyone ever suggested, or is it possible to maintain, that scarcity is the basis of man’s well-being?

And it can’t be. But, here, we have the government doing just that. Telling people, adults, what they can and can’t spend their money on, when it has no effect on anyone else. The state has a track record of doing this, but this is different, in that it is part of a march against what Home Secretary and Health Secretary Dr John Reid describes as ‘working class pleasures‘. Drop the Marxism dripping from that phrase (Reid did his PhD in Marxian economic history, although we’ll still call him a ‘doctor’ for the same reason the Times invokes that word), and you get to the point. They are not just ‘working class’ pleasures, but pleasures - period.

The intention of the Times, and its muse Peter Fahy, is highlighted by the use of the phrase ‘drive up prices’. This isn’t about raising revenue. This isn’t even a Pigouvian response to an externality. This is about punishing people’s choices by driving up prices, and how it’s done, or even why it’s done, is neither here nor there.

Such an action by the state is inexcusable, and betrays a bewildering lack of faith that the government has in the individual, and hence in humanity itself. By continuing its persecution of drinkers, smokers, and people that have fingerprints, the body politic is distancing itself from the liberalism on which this country, and all civilisation, is based. It may only be the beginning, but we should all be angry enough at time being called on every student’s favourite pastime.