If we really want to stamp out anti-social behaviour and save generations to come from early cirrhosis, let’s do something about...cheap supermarket booze.

MAYBE we should just stop supermarkets selling booze. I can’t believe I’ve just said that...

But if we want to reclaim our streets, rescue our children’s livers – and possibly prevent their front teeth being punched out in fights, or their lives taken by drunk drivers – we have to start thinking radically.

We have a problem with too many people drinking too much and too often. Fun for them maybe – and for us when it’s our turn – but not for everyone else who, literally, has to pick up the pieces. And all too soon, the drinkers pay the price too.

Booze is too easily available, too cheap and too strong. And no, I never thought I’d write that either.

But supermarkets sell lager cheaper than water. You can get wine for not much more than a bottle of Coke.

True, it could also double as paint stripper but, hey, don’t let’s get picky.

As for spirits – well, they’re cheaper than they’ve ever been. A litre of Tesco vodka is only £12. To cost the same as in the Seventies it should be nearer £40 at least. Wine should be at least £15.

Maybe I’m just jealous. As a student I drank weak beer and cider. A bottle of wine – even the gut rot – cost nearly as much as a week’s rent on my room in a student flat. Wine was for the rich or high days and holidays.

A bottle of vodka cost the equivalent of two weeks’ rent. A lot.

For students 40 years ago it was beyond the dreams of avarice.

Trust me, we weren’t sober through choice. We were sober because the grown-ups had ordered the world so that we couldn’t afford to be otherwise. Spoilsports.

And now we’re the grown-ups and as we make up for lost time, we’ve ducked out of our responsibilities.

Hence the growing problems of too much booze too young. So here’s the answer...

■ Ban alcohol from supermarkets

■ Stop 24-hour opening

■ No more happy hours

■ Make spirits and strong wines horribly expensive

And no, I don’t fancy that either.

But it would work...

WELL, I’m with the MPs’ wives on this one. In a commendable bid to end some of the sneaky ways of making money out of the rest of us, MPs might no longer be allowed to employ their wives or other members of their families as secretaries/researchers.

Yes, of course, the system is open to abuse – remember Tory MP Derek Conway who paid his son around £45,000 for work he never did? It didn’t help, of course, that his son was so ludicrous and blatantly unrepentant.

But being an MP is not a simple nine-to-five job. It is – especially for the conscientious ones – a way of life.

It puts tremendous strains on families who cannot help but get involved in much of the day to day running of an MP’s life.

Like the wives of old-fashioned doctors, dentists or vets – remember that nice Mrs Herriott on TV? – they end up acting as unofficial secretaries, phone answerers, fete openers, raffle ticket buyers, message takers and general soothers anyway, so why not let them do it officially and be paid for it?

The price of a good Parliamentary wife – or husband, or partner – is above rubies. The bad ones will just find other ways to fiddle. The good ones must be treasured and rewarded.

AS part of a food festival, Australians laid artificial turf across Sydney Harbour Bridge and had a giant picnic. Brilliant.

Wish we could do it here... Don’t need a bridge, any normally horrible stretch of motorway would do. Just a few hundred yards, so that we can reclaim the road for people not cars, put things back on a human scale, if only for a day.

After all, they shut motorways often enough for road works, how much more fun would it be to do it for a nice grassy picnic.

B&Q is to teach DIY skills to schoolchildren. As parents are too busy – or don’t know how anyway – to pass on the traditional skills of gardening, decorating, replacing a tap washer, B&Q have developed an appropriate curriculum to fill the gap.

Tesco’s meanwhile have said that the standard of reading, writing and arithmetic among school leavers is so rubbish that they have to offer catch up lessons.

Sainsbury’s – through Jamie Oliver – are promoting cooking skills. All the supermarkets seem to have schemes offering play equipment, computers and gardening tools. All we need now is for Asda to start lessons in manners and then parents can put their feet up as there’s nothing left to do.

We’ve all started worrying lately about state interference in the way we bring up our children. Maybe we should more concerned at what the supermarkets are up to, as they take over not just the world but our children too.

AND spare a thought for the volunteers in Durham Market Place tonight when they will be hot footing it, literally, across fiery coals in order to raise money for the excellent St Cuthbert’s Hospice.

Apparently, before they step out, the firewalkers are given a motivational talk on the subject of fear.

Let’s hope it works.