That is clearly the way Jasper Gerard sees it, and in an article for the IPPR he has proposed that we should have much higher threshold for legal drinking. Russell Eagling at Centre Forum has picked up on it in his excellent news digest:

The idea was roundly dismissed in our office as I suspect it will be by most other readers. But the author, Jasper Gerrard, is not unknown to liberal circles. Indeed, he regularly bashes Labour's authoritarianism over issues such as the DNA database.

So why is an otherwise sound man putting forward this barmy idea?

In fact, Jasper provided the answer to this question in his column in the Observer yesterday.

Being no stranger to the devil's milk, I'd opposed 'booze crackdowns', despite observing the ravages of alcohol on somebody close to me. Well, if teenagers are mature enough to die for their country and bleed for the Exchequer, can you leave them gasping for a Bacardi Breezer? But then the IPPR think-tank invited me to investigate the effects of drinking on youngsters and I was forced to conclude the drinking age should rise to 21 - if only as an experiment - because we face an epidemic.

The number of medical procedures carried out by the NHS for alcohol-related conditions such as liver disease have doubled in a decade, to 262,844 a year. The number taken to A&E with alcohol-related injuries has also doubled since 1997, to 148,477 a year. This includes 8,299 under-18s, a 40 per cent increase in three years. Did you know - I certainly didn't - that 22 per cent of 11-year-olds admit they have had a drink at some point? By 13, children who abstain are in a minority. Moreover, 30 per cent of the population are bingers and 15 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds are alcoholics.

His solution is more complex than simply raising age limets - but one of his arguemnts is "(r)estricting the drunken revels of young adults might just influence children".

I think it would be pretty hard to introduce - but a lot of people share his opinion* - and one of my personal eccentrciities is to believe that the minimum age of marriage (like the minimum age for serving in combat) should be set at 18.

Liberal Democrat policy on drinking (as far as I recall) includes support for strict application of the current age limit, requirements for drinking establishments to allow custmers to sit (stand up and you drink more) and power for local communities to close premises which disturb the peace. Should we go further?

I'm certainly tempted. But we are a nation of binge drinkers, and I am not sure that anything is going to stop that.

I used to live in Italy and my wife is Spanish, so I have a few benchmarks to judge British drinking. In Italy, I was always struck by the way that being drunk is just unacceptable in most Italian circles. In Spain, the problem of the botellon puts them nearer to our end of the spectrum. And that is not a comfortable place to be.

Changing a drinking culture is pretty tough, but Gerard is right to say that the sonseqwunces of binge drinking on health, on teenage pregnancy, and on crime and disorder are a heavy price to pay. Even the guy who served me those underage drinks back in the 1970s would agree.

One last thing, Russell described Jasper Gerard as "not unknown to liberal circles". This is something of an understatement: he is fighting a council seat in Sevenoaks for the Liberal Democrats. I hope he gets in.

*A majority would like the minimum age for drinking set at 19, with 40% saying 21 according to Peter Riddell and Populus.