UNTIL I read Tessa Jowell's article in the Evening Press (November 10), I stood with the police, health service, judges, local authorities and most of the general public in not quite grasping how 24-hour opening for bars will make our streets safer at night.

Or how binge drinking and anti-social behaviour will be curtailed by having a limitless supply of alcohol.

Then I read Tessa's report and a few things became clearer.

She asks us to imagine you have just left the cinema at 11.30pm and there is nowhere for a drink - shock horror, could there possibly be anything worse?

Surely the additional burdens on hospitals, police, bar staff and the mountain of paperwork and cost in all this is a small price to pay.

And the local residents living near these pubs with their selfish complaints: if they feel that strongly about their neighbourhood surely they can persuade a chief constable to live among them (are there any other exemptions?).

Tessa does raise another interesting point when she asks why should the English be out of step with Scotland? Is this a welcome change of direction from the Labour Government which will see English students not having to pay tuition fees like their Scottish counterparts?

And what about care for the elderly, spending on health care, education, school meals? If we are to be given parity with Scotland on all these issues, 24-hour boozing may well be a price worth paying.

A Glover,

Welham Park,

Norton,

Malton.

Updated: 11:01 Wednesday, November 16, 2005