Isn't this a bit overblown? I understand the eagerness on the part of some on the left to see Boris mess up but the idea that a ban on alcohol consumption on the tube is 'suppressing personal liberty' is nonsense. Likewise the charge that it runs contrary to the principles Boris held to in his campaign.
A libertarian instinct is just that - an 'instinctive' preference for personal liberty. It's not an absolutist position and sometimes liberty has to be checked for the common good - we do that all the time. Did anyone really misunderstand this in Boris' case? I suspect it just that some peoples opinion of him is so partisan and extreme that the idea he might get through his first few days without messing up was inconceivable - hence the fabricated story.
"Freedom for public drunkenness" isn't a particularly rousing battlecry....
A libertarian instinct is just that - an 'instinctive' preference for personal liberty. It's not an absolutist position and sometimes liberty has to be checked for the common good - we do that all the time. Did anyone really misunderstand this in Boris' case? I suspect it just that some peoples opinion of him is so partisan and extreme that the idea he might get through his first few days without messing up was inconceivable - hence the fabricated story.
"Freedom for public drunkenness" isn't a particularly rousing battlecry....
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It was a commitment he gave ahead of the election. So I don't think we've got much to berate Boris over on this one.
Except... that he doesn't seem quite so keen on the smoking ban, which I think he'd rather like to reverse. So there's a bit of me that thinks he's not entirely consistent, at least on public health grounds.
You think that's bad, read the Devil's Kitchen response to it. Kneejerk, completely expected, but dreary, ridiculously dreary.
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