Bill Borrows: Bingers......1 Whingers..0.

Byline: Bill Borrows

HAVE YOU just staggered back from the shops with a pint of milk and some smoked bacon, then sat down at the kitchen table with the Mirror and realised you've forgotten the bread?

I hope you weren't binge-drinking last night...

This "new craze" (that's "new" as in breathing) is about to bring a once great country to its knees. Or at least cause it to be found collapsed in a pool of vomit on a High Street very near you soon.

Members of the judiciary are warning that the proposed relaxation of the licensing laws will lead to a drink-fuelled armageddon. "Rape, grievous bodily harm and worse," according to Judge John Samuels QC.

A spokesman for the Derbyshire Constabulary has declared that, "Domestic violence often follows a drinker's arrival home".

The Church of England is fretting ineffectually (as ever) and the Daily Mail is incandescent with rage (whatever).

Tory leader Michael Howard is merely struggling for column inches, saying, "The Act should not be brought into effect until binge-drinking has been brought under control. The government didn't listen to us."

Well neither did the electorate, so nothing new there. But there is something new here.

Conservative Future - an organisation with a sense of humour if nothing else - have this on their website:

"Here's hoping you had a safe and peaceful New Year with plenty of drink and merriment. But not too much, for government ASBOs and the PC culture will be looking over our shoulders. Surely, it can't be because we're having too much fun?"

Conservative Future is for Tories under 30 who are presumably backing David Cameron for the party leadership. After all, the Shadow Secretary of State for Education gets pounds 27,500 a year to be on the board of the firm that owns the Tiger, Tiger bars and Sugar Reef in London's West End.

It remains to be seen whether, like 90 per cent of other licensees, his establishments will apply for an extended licence. But that won't be encouraging binge-drinking. Oh no. It will be providing extra choice for consumers.

Much in the same way that when comedy-drunk Prince Harry fights the paparazzi outside a nightclub, they have invaded his privacy. But when "Lotto Lout" Michael Carroll clocks one, he is a thug.

And when four public schoolboys strip a pupil naked and roll him down a hill in Somerset it is "high jinks". But when the same thing happens in a park in Sefton, Merseyside it is a "sickening sexual assault".

I ask you a question.

Has the establishment got a problem with the rest of the population being able to enjoy privileges previously extended only to politicians and judges (in their various clubs), policemen (in after-hours lock-ins) and members of the clergy?

I give you an answer. Yes, of course it has.

Binge-drinking might not be advisable but it can't hurt your career prospects.

Just look at Euan Blair. One minute he's unconscious in Leicester Square and the next he's an intern working for the Republican Party in Washington.

Let him be an example to young pissheads everywhere.

CAPTION(S):

LOST LOOK: C4 star Lilly