‘20 tins of Stella for a fiver’: The making of class through Labour and Coalition government alcohol policy

Introduction

Alcohol use in the UK has been a key concern to both the Labour and Coalition governments, ¹ as well as commanding considerable attention in the media and indeed, in academic discussion. Academic analysis has drawn attention to the expansion of the night-time economy in the UK since the 1980s, and how this can be understood within the context of neoliberalism or neo-Fordism, with local as well as national government actively fostering this growth through what has been characterised as ‘municipal capitalism’ (Hobbs et al. 2000: 703, Chatterton and Hollands 2003, Hadfield 2004, Winlow and Hall 2006).

At the same time as government has sought to foster the growth of the night-time economy as an engine of economic regeneration, however, it has not been entirely comfortable with all forms of alcohol consumption, with ‘binge drinking’ being of particular concern. Hobbs et al. (2005) and others have therefore discerned an element of ‘hypocrisy’ within government policy, whereby individuals are ‘invited to binge’ (Hadfield 2004), and then condemned for the predictable consequences. This ‘hypocrisy’ can be understood as part of a neoliberal approach to regulation that operates according to the dual dynamic of seduction and repression (Bauman 1992, 1997).

This article analyses recent government policy discussions in order to understand how particular forms of drinking have been defined as problematic. It could be argued that, in the words of Hayward and Hobbs (2007: 440), ‘Six pints of lager or a bottle of champagne can provide a transgressive pharmacological and cultural nexus that is not class specific.’ However, the analysis presented here suggests that in seeking to regulate alcohol consumption, successive UK governments have not taken this neutral perspective. Rather, the definitions of problematic drinking and associated policy initiatives can be seen as linked to a wider symbolic economy through which people come to be valued differently. Central to this understanding is Bourdieu’s (e.g. 1990: ch. 8) concept of ‘symbolic violence’, in which a worldview is imposed as a result of its having greater symbolic capital behind it. This article argues that government framing and presentation of alcohol-related issues can be seen as such a form of symbolic violence, and thus a key way in which class is constituted in contemporary Britain.

This article should therefore be seen neither as a celebration nor a condemnation of the drinking practices identified as problematic by government. Moreover, the problems identified by government should not be assumed to accurately represent people’s experiences or understandings of drinking. ‘Binge drinking’ has been described by Berridge et al. (2009) as a ‘confused concept’, and Hackley et al. (2008: 67) have noted its inadequacy in explaining the actual ways in which people understand alcohol. The aim of this article is simply to demonstrate how the particular construction of alcohol as problematic by successive governments has reflected and reinforced ideas of class.

Of course, the analysis presented here is only one way of understanding government discussions of alcohol, and should be understood alongside other perspectives. The accounts cited above emphasise the importance of the broader neoliberal mentality of government framing policy interventions. Alternatively, the way in which young people’s alcohol consumption is viewed as particularly problematic could be considered (e.g. Hobbs 2005). Moreover, as discussed below, the somewhat binary approach presented in this analysis is not the only class dynamic relating to alcohol policy. Nevertheless, it is suggested that such a perspective helps to illuminate the class-based understandings that underpin government policies and their representation.

Theoretical framework: Groups, class, taste and distinction

Class is understood in this article in the light of a broad conception of a symbolic economy, linking together a variety of forms of inequality and power. Class must refer to a group, and be based on some form of exploitation, explaining the operation of power within a society. As Rosemary Crompton (1993: 1) has explained, societies produce an ‘unequal distribution of material and symbolic rewards’, and ‘class’ is a concept employed in order to explain these inequalities. In this way it is more than a measure of income or status; it seeks to explain the reproduction of these inequalities, as well as measure them.

The use of the terms ‘symbolic’ and ‘material’ is important in this context. The analysis presented here follows Bourdieu (e.g. 1984, 1987) in understanding class to be the summary of ‘cultural’ and ‘social’ capital, as well as the more conventional ‘economic’ capital. Cultural capital can be understood as a person’s cultural practices and knowledge. Social capital amounts to connections, networks and group memberships that can be used as resources (Skeggs 2004: 17). It might be informally summed up as being ‘who one knows’. When these different forms of capital are recognised by others as legitimate, they can be considered ‘symbolic’ capital (Bourdieu 1994: 127).

Bourdieu was interested in symbolic capital because he saw it as affecting one’s power. Even if one were only interested in economic inequality, the links between this and cultural and social forms of capital mean that a full analysis would have to include these elements. This broader notion of a symbolic economy also has implications for forms of exploitation other than the directly economic. Bourdieu’s (e.g. 1990: ch. 8) concept of ‘symbolic violence’ – wherein one person imposes his or her worldview on another – captures one key way in which symbolic capital affects the operation of power. Affecting people’s worldview is crucial to politics, since it alters the way the world is viewed and the perceived possibility of change (Bourdieu 1977: 165). It also affects the way one sees other people, and therefore human interaction more generally: characteristics that are valued, for example, can affect who is given a particular job.

Class, understood as a grouping of individuals, can be understood as one way in which this form of symbolic violence can operate. Bourdieu (1989) suggests that the formation of a class as a group requires ‘political work’. The title of E.P. Thompson’s (1991) influential work, The Making of the English Working Class, should be taken literally, therefore: it is through banners, organisations, and a particular vocabulary (the ‘proletariat’, ‘working class’, ‘workers’. etc.) that the working class is recognised as (and therefore becomes) a group. However, this ‘political work’ is not neutral, and could be undertaken not only by members of the relevant group, but also by others outside it. In the context of the working class, for example, this might lead to references to ‘mass’ rather than community or solidarity (Williams 1990; and see e.g. Carey 1992). This symbolic power is central to politics, which is the struggle of differing views of the social world.

Bourdieu (1984) argues that ‘taste’ is a key way in which this form of group-making occurs, as the mechanism of distinction delineates class groups based on aesthetic preferences. Symbolic capital only operates as such when it is recognised by others, and the system by which cultural capital is recognised can be understood as aesthetics, or, more straightforwardly, taste. Bourdieu suggests that the dominant system of cultural value legitimates those cultural practices that broadly accord with a Kantian aesthetic – and that taste of this kind is most common amongst the ‘dominant class’. He claims that this legitimate taste is defined by its distance from sensual, ‘naïve’ pleasures – the complex, as opposed to the ‘facile’. ‘Popular’ taste, by contrast, is more satisfied by a ‘sense of revelry, the plain speaking and hearty laughter which liberate by setting the social world head over heels, overturning conventions and proprieties’ (Bourdieu 1984: 34). The Kantian aesthetic can be considered a form of symbolic violence, as it devalues the ‘popular’ pleasures and desires.

Bourdieu’s model of class is multifaceted, and he draws attention to how particular ‘fractions’ within classes are distinguished from one another. In this light, the analysis presented below could be seen as somewhat binary, with the focus being on how certain forms of drinking, associated with the working class, are presented as undesirable when compared with more rational, responsible forms constructed as being middle-class. Moreover, although the analysis below will refer to historical resonances, a binary picture would be at odds with the complex history of class and drinking in England. Excess could be seen as a characteristic as much of the early modern aristocracy as the working class (Withington 2013), and there was a strong current of working-class involvement in the 19th-century temperance movement (see Harrison 1971). This complexity has particular relevance if one sees the Coalition government as representing the aristocracy as much as an aspirational, rational, sober bourgeoisie. However, a binary approach to class is taken here because, as will be seen, this is the way in which the issue is consistently framed by government.

‘Binge drinking’ as a culture

One way in which class operates with respect to alcohol and government discourses and policies is the identification of a particular drinking culture as being problematic. In the case of public policy, this is most clear with respect to what is referred to as ‘binge drinking’. Here, I do not seek to assess whether such a culture is observable; most academic commentators have chosen quite different terminology and questioned the utility of ‘binge’ as a concept (e.g. Murgraff et al. 1999; Szmigin et al. 2008; Berridge et al. 2009). Rather, I am concerned to identify the importance of this conception of problematic drinking in structuring the formulation and rationalisation of governmental responses to alcohol use.

The Labour government of 1997–2010 has been understood by some to have liberalised licensing laws in the UK, ushering in an area of so-called 24-hour drinking (e.g. Codd 2006). Despite some rhetorical flourishes, with threats to ‘tear up’ the 2003 Licensing Act that introduced the reforms (Grayling 2009; May 2010), the fundamental commitment to the principle of liberalisation remains under the Coalition government, which stated in its response to the 2010 Consultation on the Licensing Act that it was ‘continuing to look for ways to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses and local authorities’ (Home Office 2010: 2, emphasis added).

However, the very existence of alcohol strategies and such consultations betrays the fact that successive governments have had some conception that alcohol consumption is not universally positive. As well as publishing two alcohol strategies of its own, the Labour government published numerous other documents outlining its particular approach to alcohol. One common feature of these documents is that they tend to delineate different models of drinking to illustrate what is considered problematic about alcohol consumption. The 2004 strategy stated that particular drinking ‘patterns’ were most likely to cause problems; namely, ‘binge’ and ‘chronic’ drinking (Cabinet Office 2004: 4). In the 2007 strategy, this terminology was updated to outline three ‘types of drinking’: ‘binge’, ‘harmful’, and ‘sensible’ (HM Government 2007: 3). Sensible drinking was the government’s ideal, and was defined in terms of quantity of alcohol consumed, with daily and weekly limits specified. Harmful drinking was also defined in terms of the quantity drunk, covering those who regularly drink more than these recommended limits. In contrast, binge drinking was defined by government as drinking ‘too much’ (without reference to an amount of units) over a short period of time and becoming drunk. Currently, where statistics are currently released on drinking practices, the drinking population is segmented into ‘lower’, ‘increasing’ and ‘higher’ risk drinkers. ‘Binge’ drinkers could be in any of these categories, and estimates for such practices stand separately, as they relate to a single occasion of drinking rather than a weekly average of consumption (LAPE 2012). The definition of ‘binge’ drinking was expressed perhaps most clearly in a 2008 consultation document which described ‘those who binge drink’ as those who ‘drink to get drunk’ (Department of Health 2008: 9). ²

That is, the defining feature of this problematic behaviour was not the quantity of alcohol consumed, or even necessarily the consequence of becoming drunk, but individuals’ motivation for drinking: deliberately seeking intoxication. The problems caused by ‘binge’ drinking were largely ascribed to ‘the culture of drinking to get drunk’, given that ‘there is no direct relationship between the amounts or patterns of consumption and types or levels of harm caused or experienced’ (Cabinet Office 2004: 12). This ‘binge’ drinking ‘culture’ was described by the 2004 Strategy as follows:

In the culture of drinking to get drunk, which often sets the tone for the night-time economy, the norms differ from usual behaviour – noisy behaviour may be expected and aggressive behaviour tolerated, with drunkenness used as an excuse. Where there is little social control, such behaviour is likely to increase. (Cabinet Office 2004: 46)

The Coalition government has continued to define ‘binge’ drinking in much the same way, with the 2012 Alcohol Strategy focusing on ‘those who drink to get drunk’. This is again explicitly referred to as ‘a culture … where it has become acceptable to be excessively drunk in public’ (HM Government 2012: 2, 3).

The culture of ‘binge drinking’ is therefore condemned according to this schema of concerns because it interferes with rational decision-making. One key concern is that it leaves individuals more vulnerable, and also more liable to commit criminal acts. The ‘Know Your Limits’ public education campaign run by the Labour government, for example, had as its stated aim to highlight ‘the vulnerability of binge drinkers and [emphasise] both the physical and criminal consequences that can arise from irresponsible alcohol consumption’ (HM Government 2007: 33). It therefore showed, in its television format, a young man falling from some scaffolding as he reached for some balloons that had been let go by members of a hen party. He had overestimated his abilities because he had been drunk.

At the same time, government’s discomfort with the ‘binge’ drinking ‘culture’ extended beyond putting one’s life or health at risk. The television advertisements in the ‘Would You?’ campaign illustrate this well. The stated aim of this broader campaign, which also included print and radio advertisements, was ‘to highlight the possible negative consequences of drinking excessively’ (Home Office and NHS 2008: 1). One of the television advertisements shows a young man preparing to go out (NHS and Home Office 2008b), and the other shows a young woman (NHS and Home Office 2008a). As they get ready, the man urinates on his shoes, spills food on his t-shirt and rips his jacket. The woman gets her skirt wet, smudges her eye make-up and smears vomit in her hair. The advert then asks: ‘You wouldn’t start a night like this so why end it that way?’

The actions are symbolic of being excessive and irresponsible. They are not normal everyday (or daytime) behaviour. However, it is difficult to draw a clear line between what constitutes anti-social behaviour and what simply constitutes a transgression of personal morality, and it is not immediately clear why the government should be concerned with all the actions in the advertisements, such as having a torn jacket or smudging one’s make-up, from a crime and health perspective. Even urinating on one’s shoes or having a wet skirt are unlikely to cause a health problem, although the fact that one has vomited suggests that one has drunk more alcohol than one’s body can cope with. Notably the advertisements themselves, in contrast with the ‘Know Your Limits’ campaign, do not make any link with any criminal or unhealthy behaviour; the point is simply that one would not act this way at other times, or if one was sober. ³

The point I wish to emphasise here is that the idea of excess that has been condemned by successive governments goes beyond risk to oneself and harm or inconvenience to others. The ‘Would You?’ campaign contrasts the effort that may be put into ensuring the desired presentation of oneself at the beginning of the night with how one may appear by the end. The focus is on the presentation of a responsible, orderly, respectable self as valued in the everyday, sober world. It is not only that the apparent offences in the advertisements have no victim apart from the protagonists themselves, but also that the actions are only ‘offences’ from a particular moral standpoint. It is almost as if the government is giving advice on how to construct a (performative) responsible self. In this way, it can be argued that governmental objections to the perceived ‘binge’ drinking culture are manifested in moral terms rather than simply focusing on crime and risk management. They are part of a broader aesthetic that reflects how certain behaviour is viewed and classified. As such, the ‘Would You?’ advertisements can be considered attempts to foster a sense of disgust at certain actions and then mobilise this through (self-)discipline to mould young people’s drinking practices.

A number of writers have emphasised the resonance and importance of disgust in the process of class formation (e.g. Bourdieu 1984; Lawler 2005; Tyler 2008). Nevertheless, this idea of a binge-drinking ‘culture’ of excess could be seen as something almost independent of individual identity; something that can be adopted or rejected as a set of behaviours – with the government trying to use shame as an appeal to drinkers’ better natures. (Indeed, shame is one of the tools in the ‘nudge’ armoury [Thaler and Sunstein 2008].) However, those ideas of shame and disgust suggest a collective morality, which the most problematic drinkers are understood not to share. In policy implemented by both Labour and the Coalition governments, the overwhelming impression is not of a style of drinking that could be occasionally indulged in; rather, it is the defining feature of a specific group of people: ‘binge’ drinkers, who are understood as constituting a particular section of society. In the 2004 Strategy, then Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned ‘binge’ drinking by a ‘small minority’ of the population (Cabinet Office 2004: 2). In 2007, the Strategy foreword was signed by the departmental ministers, who lamented that there was ‘the idea (among some of the population) that drunken antisocial behaviour is acceptable or normal’ (HM Government 2007: 1). In 2012, although David Cameron stated that ‘binge drinking isn’t some fringe issue’, the Strategy was still at pains to point out that ‘the majority of people who drink do so in an entirely responsible way’, in contrast with ‘those who drink to get drunk’ who are ‘irresponsible citizens’ (HM Government 2012: 2-4).

It is possible that the issue of alcohol consumption could be framed at a population level, arguing that the British public as a whole drinks too much. Indeed, one key recommendation of some commentators is that ‘population level’ policies to reduce alcohol consumption should be introduced (e.g. Casswell 1997, Morris 2012). Nevertheless, at least in public statements, it is clear that when government targets ‘binge’ drinking, it considers itself to be targeting not simply a leisure choice that we might all engage in, but a specific group of individuals: that ‘small minority’ of ‘binge’ drinkers. This may be an issue of political expediency (the logic being that it may be easier to frame a measure with universal effects as being targeted at an irresponsible minority), but the analysis of the confluence of economic and cultural factors presented in the following sections suggests that the target ‘minority’ is constructed in class terms.

Historical resonances

The ‘binge’ drinking culture as defined by successive governments, with its deliberate seeking of irrationality through intoxication and abandonment of everyday norms, has strong historical resonances with notions of class. At its simplest level, the association of rationality and sobriety with the middle class, in contrast with the excessive irrationality and intoxication at either end of the social spectrum, has been argued by James Nicholls (2009: 98) to have been a key theme in the formation of the middle class in the 18th century. ⁴ As well as having links with notions of industriousness and rationality, there is also an element to this understanding of intoxication that portrays it as an immediate, sensate, and therefore ‘facile’ pleasure, following a Kantian aesthetic identified by Bourdieu (1984) as central to the construction of class through culture.

‘Binge drinking’ – as a description of others’ behaviour – can also be argued to have historical resonances with the broader concept of the carnivalesque, which has strong class connotations. In words that closely parallel current portrayals of the night-time economy, Mike Featherstone (1991: 22) describes the carnival tradition thus:

The popular tradition of carnivals, fairs and festivals provided symbolic inversions and transgressions of the official ‘civilized’ culture and favoured excitement, uncontrolled emotions and the direct and vulgar grotesque bodily pleasures of fattening food, intoxicating drink and sexual promiscuity.

Stallybrass and White (1986) have suggested that the carnivalesque is one key element of a more general symbolic system, ordered by the high/low opposition, which is a fundamental basis of mechanisms of ordering and sense-making in European cultures. It is in this context that Skeggs (2004) argues that almost the defining feature of the working class in the United Kingdom today is its apparent ‘excessiveness’. The accuracy of this characterisation, whether in the past or today, should not be taken for granted given the significance of working-class temperance campaigning, for example. Such drinking could constitute a sub-culture (Janes and Ames 1989; Talbot 2006); and there is little agreement that such cultures are necessarily classed (see, for example, Bennett 1999). What I wish to emphasise here is the potency of this carnivalesque association and its long historical resonances.

The carnivalesque has often been understood as a challenge to dominant norms and understandings (Bakhtin 1984; Easton et al. 1988; Ravenscroft and Gilchrist 2009). Winlow and Hall (2006) therefore reject the term as an accurate description of the contemporary night-time economy, dominated as it is by large corporate interests and actively cultivated by successive governments. Although there are ways in which drinking practices within the night-time economy do challenge notions of rationality and respectability that are central to neoliberal policymaking frameworks (Griffin et al. 2009), it is certainly hard to accept these practices uncritically as forms of ‘cultural dissent and resistance’ (Winlow and Hall 2006: 2).

Therefore, my use of the term ‘carnivalesque’ here should be understood as being confined to understanding governmental and wider discussions of drinking in order to illuminate the operation of power – the operation of such figures and tropes that can be seen as instances of symbolic violence. Such an analysis, somewhat at odds with Bakhtin, emphasises the nature of the carnival as spectacle: as a site of both disgust and fascination, rather than of radical resistance. The carnival can be viewed from outside, from above, and aestheticized, converted into a spectacle for the delight and disgust of middle-class observers, seeking to distinguish themselves from the plebeian other (Stallybrass and White 1986: 118-119).

The association of the perceived binge drinking ‘culture’ with the working class is not simply made through implicit historical resonance, however. There are more direct class references in contemporary public policy discussions of ‘binge’ drinking. Tessa Jowell, for example, explained the introduction of the 2003 Licensing Act thus: ‘There is a simple logic to this new law. Adults should be trusted to make their own decisions about when and where they have a night out. But yobbish behaviour will be punished hard and swift’ (cited in Plant and Plant 2006: 99). In this formulation, the language used by Jowell reveals an association of undesirable, apparently excessive ‘binge drinking’ behaviour with the working class. The term ‘yob’ originates in cockney backslang, where words were reversed, and thus means ‘boy’. This form of slang was primarily associated with barrow-boys and thieves (Ayto 2007: 92) – notably, not the respectable classes. It has passed in common usage to refer to those who are violent and disorderly, by virtue of the association with the young men of this class. The following sections look at this classing of problematic drinking in more detail, with particular reference to how economic value is linked to wider notion of morality and symbolic capital.

Economics and valuing drinking cultures

This section demonstrates how government measures to combat ‘binge drinking’ and broader public policy discussions around these reveal an understanding that problematic alcohol use is undertaken by those who are economically unproductive, live in particular (deprived) areas of the country, and choose particular drinks which are considered to be simple and cheap, as opposed to more complex (expensive) pleasures. In this way, ‘binge drinking’ is explicitly associated with economic capital and cultural capital, suggesting that it is valued according to a broad symbolic economy that links various conceptions of value, and serves to construct individuals as part of groupings that are classed.

In framing public policy surrounding alcohol, successive governments have emphasised that there are positive aspects to alcohol consumption. For example, a document published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families under the Labour government set the context thus: ‘Drinking alcohol plays a long-standing, generally positive role in British culture’ (DCSF 2009: 5).

In government policies and statements, this ‘positive role’ is frequently conceived of in economic terms. All three recent alcohol strategies – in 2004, 2007 and most recently in 2012 − have placed emphasis on the value of the alcohol industry, at £29bn-£30bn. Under the Labour government in particular, the alcohol industry was seen as being central to ‘a revival of city centres across England and Wales’ (HM Government 2007: 30), with the hope that a new night-time economy would create ‘Bologna in Birmingham, Madrid in Manchester’ (ODPM 2003). This approach was already in place in the 1990s, leading Hobbs et al. (2000: 703) to argue that the approach to alcohol regulation could be seen as part of a broader shift in the mentality of local government from ‘municipal socialism’ to ‘municipal capitalism’, whereby the market in alcohol consumption is expanded, and indeed the active consumer of alcohol is seen as a good citizen. Here, I want to analyse how, given this emphasis on economic value, this ideal citizen-drinker’s consumption patterns are judged in the same terms, so that such status is only available to those with sufficient economic capital.

At the broadest level, ideas of economic productivity and wealth are key criteria for understanding who is able to drink without censure. Labour Home Office minister Alan Campbell (2009), for example, stated with respect to alcohol pricing policies:

My concern during an economic downturn but indeed at any time is that people go out to work, they work very hard, they come home at the end of the week, you know, they want to go to the pub and have a reasonably priced drink, or they want to go to the supermarket and get a bottle of wine to enjoy in the comfort of their own home with their families.

In this formulation, those who work hard are seen as deserving a drink, and they should not be penalised for this. That is, their right to drink depends on their having gone out to work and been productive.

This apparent causal link is also understood to operate, in some senses, in the opposite direction. That is, just as the economically valuable citizen is understood to have earned the right to drink alcohol, so those who have apparently transgressed in their consumption are understood to be economically less productive. Targeted economic measures are understood to address not only consumption, but also issues of behaviour and culture, reflecting an understanding that ‘binge drinking’ means more than just a certain quantity of alcohol having being consumed. In this way, the apparently undesirable culture of ‘binge drinking’ is linked with a lack of economic capital. ⁵

Measures introduced in Oldham in 2009 offer one particular example of how the economic and cultural can converge. In response to concerns surrounding alcohol-related behaviour, the council in Oldham set a minimum price of 75p per unit of alcohol, to apply to sales for consumption on licensed premises in the town. In terms of its most immediate consequences, such minimum pricing, whether at a local level as in Oldham, or at a national level as outlined by the Coalition government, tends to affect those who buy the cheapest alcohol and who have the least money, since the price of more expensive drinks, which the more wealthy are able to afford, is not (directly) affected. However, beyond this, such price mechanisms, in Oldham at least, were accompanied by a set of regulations that showed a broader antipathy towards those with less spending power. If a venue wanted to sell drinks for less than the specified minimum, it was obliged to fulfil additional requirements in order to retain its licence. These included funding additional police officers, to be permanently stationed in the venue for the course of the offer in question; operating a ‘post office style’ queue, whereby customers formally line up in rows delineated by ropes; and allowing each customer to buy only two drinks at a time (BBC 2009a).

According to the Oldham formulation, then, the moment at which the state should intervene in the running of drinking venues, and consequently the activities of drinkers, is when alcohol is being sold at a low price. It should be noted that a policy could alternatively have been applied to venues on the basis of behaviour, or consequences of drinking, rather than the prices. This price-based policy was justified not simply on the basis that selling alcohol too cheaply makes anyone drink too much; but rather, that it attracted a particular category of person. When questioned about the policies in Oldham, a council official gave this explanation:

The price of alcohol became so cheap that it was attracting people who didn’t have a lot of money to spend. That type of clientele was attracted to the town and that, we think, led to more issues concerned with their – that overconsumption. (BBC 2009a)

In this formulation, those with little money are understood to be more likely to cause trouble. Access to money is thus associated with access to responsibility. This is a familiar echo of longstanding concerns regarding the working classes having ‘money in their pockets’ (see McRobbie 2009).

It is possible that this targeting could be a rational response to a particular section of the drinking public causing more problems than any other. However, Hollands (2000: 203) found that only around 20 per cent of his research participants had ever been involved in an act of violence in the context of the night-time economy. This would make a measure targeted at all those with low levels of disposable income a strange form of class profiling or collective punishment – in direct contrast to the individualism of the alcohol strategy in place at the time (Hackley et al. 2008). Moreover, Hollands found that students were in fact more likely than locals to admit to an act of vandalism, further calling into question any supposed direct link between class and alcohol-related disorder. In addition, such a targeted approach flies in the face of the criminological perspective that emphasises the underlying causes of such disorder: ‘micro-climates of insecurity, fear, aggression and violence’ (Winlow and Hall 2006: 110).

In the statements of both Alan Campbell and the Oldham council official, ideas of class are mobilised by linking undesirable consumption with a lack of money, on the one hand; and linking desirable consumption with hard work on the other. This theme is echoed throughout discussions of alcohol pricing policies. Ian Gilmore, a past president of the Royal College of Physicians and chair of the UK Alcohol Health Alliance, who frequently makes public commentary on government alcohol policy, is reported as being specifically worried about white cider, ‘sold very cheaply in cut-price supermarkets such as Lidl and Aldi in deprived areas’. In similar terms, he has stated of a pricing policy, ‘There is no point in Waitrose in Godalming doing it and not Lidl in inner-city Liverpool’ (quoted in Boseley and Wintour 2008). In this way, the ‘problem’ of alcohol consumption is again conceived of as being linked to price, and thus associated with those from low-income or ‘deprived’ backgrounds.

The Conservative Party in opposition, and subsequently the Coalition government, has taken up Gilmore’s concern with white cider specifically. In this case, a particular drink becomes a signifier for a particular type of behaviour, and through this, a particular type of person. In a speech to the Conservative Party conference in 2009, Chris Grayling made it clear that his target was strong cider, not ‘the ordinary pint in the pub’ (Grayling 2009). In 2010, the Treasury released a report transforming this position into policy. This report reveals clearly the underlying matrix that ties together motivation, price and aesthetic enjoyment. White cider is characterised as being problematic due to its links with disorder and health issues, and the fact that it is ‘cheap’ and ‘strong’ in terms of alcohol content. It is understood that increasing the price of the drink may address its affordability and desirability, and therefore potentially reduce the problems currently associated with it.

There is indeed strong evidence for the argument that the most ‘harmful’ drinkers disproportionately consume cheap alcohol – and specifically, cheap cider (Purhouse et al. 2009; Chick and Gill 2013). However, the regulatory measure (increasing the duty payable) is not based on price; it has not been introduced for all cheap drinks or all strong drinks, or even for all strong or cheap cider specifically, which would be possible given that duty varies by type of drink (wine, beer, cider or spirits). Rather, a specific rate of duty is targeted at ‘white’ or ‘industrial’ cider on the basis of its manufacturing process: according to the Alcoholic Duties (Definition of Cider) Order 2010, white cider is defined in terms of its ‘juice content’. In this way, other strong ciders brewed in a different way are immune from this increase in duty. The document describes these other strong ciders as ‘traditional cider’, and states that they are ‘often premium products and are not associated with problem drinking’ (HM Treasury 2010: 14).

The rationale underpinning this economic initiative is a cultural, or aesthetic, one. Despite their high alcohol content, ‘traditional’ ciders are not to be targeted because they are thought to be drunk by different people, with different motivations and understandings. The rationale for drinking ‘industrial’ cider is understood to be instrumental: for the purpose of intoxication. In contrast, ‘traditional’ strong cider is drunk for reasons of ‘pure’ taste in the Kantian sense.

The parallels with Bourdieu’s analysis of classed taste are striking. In terms of food, for example, Bourdieu (1984: 196) contrasts the apparent working-class practice of eating food that efficiently provides the body with fuel for little money in an efficient manner with the elite’s approach that emphasises the distance from necessity of both the type of food and the manner of eating it. This distance from the inherent properties of objects, and their necessary function, is understood to be part of a ‘pure’ taste. Immediate pleasures – such as intoxication, or even music, to some extent – are understood to be inferior and facile.

The Treasury document makes the same argument in even more explicit terms with regard to beer. Just as a distinction was drawn between ‘industrial’ and ‘traditional’ ciders, so one is drawn between ‘super-strength’ lagers and ‘highly-priced, premium beers’ – both of which may have a distinctly high alcohol content. In introducing ‘super-strength’ lagers, the document states simply, ‘they are consumed disproportionately by men, and those in lower socio-economic groups’ (HM Treasury 2010: 13). It is not made clear why this is of any relevance, and yet the remainder of the section shows that class – defined in terms of both economics and culture – is central to the discussion. The features that allow a beer to be exempt from regulation are that it should be ‘highly priced’ and ‘premium’. However, a solely price-based mechanism – such as minimum unit pricing (MUP) – could avoid targeting such drinks. The key characteristic of this measure is that it regulates on the basis of both the economic and the cultural. The document explains the dual nature of the measure in terms resonant with Bourdieu’s model of taste, economics and distinction:

These niche, premium products are often consumed in a different way to the ‘super-strength’ lagers because they are served in lower volumes (330ml) and frequently consumed with a meal. They will face only a small percentage increase in price and it is likely that their consumers are not very price sensitive because they choose these beers specifically for their taste and already pay a high price. (HM Treasury 2010: 13)

Strikingly, although references to evidence are offered for other sections of the report’s claims regarding drinking styles – for example, that on ‘up tempo’ nights out, more spirits are proportionally consumed – there are no references offered for either the idea that ‘premium’ beers are often served in 330ml measures, or that people drink these beers with a meal.

Assuming that drunken behaviour is to some extent learned and affected by cultural expectations (MacAndrew and Edgerton 1970), it would be possible that certain drinks produce different types of drunkenness, and therefore might be targeted in order to reduce particular drunken behaviour. However, as noted above, although there is evidence that alcohol-related issues are associated with the consumption of cheaper drinks, there is little evidence linking health or disorder to particular types of drink. Research in this field tends to place drink choice within ‘an interactional process involving multiple contributing factors or causes’ (Graham et al. 1998), and therefore it would be difficult and misleading to identify this single factor as a causal link. Where certain drinks have been identified with health or disorder, they are typically understood to be indicators of broader lifestyle patterns (Tjønneland et al. 1999); and it is generally spirits that have been identified with violence (Pihl et al. 1984; Norstrom 1998). Moreover, the government does not make reference to any such research, relying rather on cultural understandings of responsibility and value.

Policy discussions of white cider have often focused on street drinkers and alcoholics (e.g. Alcohol Concern 2011). This might suggest a separate strand of policy from those targeting ‘binge’ drinking. However, such a distinct target group is not identified in the Treasury document, which, as noted, refers only to men from ‘lower socio-economic groups’. Moreover, I would emphasise the continuity in rhetoric and underlying symbolic economy across different policy areas, meaning that the link between both economic and cultural capital and desirable, responsible drinking behaviour is reinforced.

This association of ‘premium’ products with ‘responsible’ drinking has been enthusiastically taken up by sections of the alcohol industry, with Pernod Ricard (2009) stating on its website that ‘our business strategy of promoting the premium nature of our wine and spirits brands goes a long way to encourage consumers to enjoy a drink responsibly’. Similarly, James Watt, founder of the Brew Dog brewery, responded to the media furore surrounding the launch of their unusually strong ‘Tokyo’ beer by drawing on discourses of complexity and responsibility:

Mass-market, industrially-brewed lagers are so bland and tasteless that you are seduced into drinking a lot of them. We’ve been challenging people to drink less alcohol, and educating the palates of drinkers with progressive craft-brewed beers which have an amazing depth of flavour, body and character. The beers made at Brew Dog, including Tokyo, are providing a cure to binge beer-drinking. (BBC 2009b)

After the publication of the Treasury document, minimum unit pricing (MUP) became Coalition government policy, before being dropped again. In terms of their potential impact on public health, policies such as MUP have been justified on the basis that they will affect consumption across a population, rather than being specifically targeted at individuals who consume in problematic ways (Morris 2012). In contrast with the changes in duty introduced to target particular drinks on the basis of their cultural characteristics, MUP would simply operate on the basis of price and alcohol content. Where the effects of such universal policies are considered to be targeted, this is justified on the basis that those who drink the lowest-priced products tend to have the most alcohol-related problems (Purhouse et al. 2009).

Despite its ostensible universal application, when MUP was explained by the government it was presented as targeting a classed group of problematic drinkers. In the 2012 Alcohol Strategy, the headline policy announcement of MUP was explicitly linked as targeting ‘binge drinking’ – the core concern that opened and closed the prime minister’s foreword. This reflected a sustained mode of presentation. Thus David Cameron later justified MUP on the basis that it will stop ‘a family with a reasonable drinking habit’ (which the Telegraph, reporting on the statement, calls ‘middle class’) subsidising ‘the binge drinker’ (Hope 2012).

In another instance, Cameron linked this target group with a particular drink with class connotations as the emblematic target of MUP, stating that consumers should not be able to buy ‘20 tins of Stella for a fiver’ (quoted in the Daily Mail 2010). This drink – Stella Artois lager – has strong associations with class. As Hayward and Yar (2006) have suggested, drinking ‘Stella’ is one of the key consumption-based identifiers of so-called ‘chavs’. ⁶ Stella Artois is singled out in this context by Cameron not for its price alone, especially given that its advertising slogan from 1982 to 2007 was ‘reassuringly expensive’ (Suggett 2012), but for its particular class connotations: in order to make the point that the consumption being targeted is problematic in a specific way. That is, in order to justify a policy ostensibly based solely on price, cultural motifs are employed. In this way, government discussions of alcohol policy link economics and culture as part of a broader understanding of what sort of drinking is problematic. Even where a policy is apparently universal, then, its presentation continues to construct problematic drinking as a phenomenon associated with the working-class other. This is an intriguing reversal of the logic of one of the original advocates of population-based public health measures for alcohol, Kettil Bruun, ⁷ who felt that taking this approach would be less stigmatising than targeting particular groups within society (Sulkunen and Warsell 2012).

Conclusion

This article has argued that government discussions of alcohol, most notably in the case of so-called ‘binge drinking’, have employed and reinforced classed understandings of social practices. ‘Binge drinking’, the archetype of drinking behaviour that has been condemned by both the recent Labour government and its Coalition successor, has been defined not in terms of the quantity of alcohol consumed, or criminal actions committed under the influence of alcohol, but in terms of a wider culture that values drunkenness. Already, such a classification draws on historical associations of the carnivalesque with the working class, and ideas of ‘pure’ as opposed to facile tastes. However, the distinction is not only a historical one; it is alive in contemporary forms in today’s Britain.

In the case of the regulation of alcohol in contemporary Britain, then, we can see how the different forms of inequality and distinction are woven together to create a sense of distinction that can be understood by reference to a broad symbolic economy. In determining price policies relating to alcohol, the wider aesthetic approach of the drinker is considered. There are certain drinks that are seen to be drunk purely for their taste, and it is not considered appropriate that these should be the targets of pricing policies. A key indicator that a drink is likely to have this high aesthetic status is that it is expensive. That is, the economic is taken to be an indicator of the cultural. On the other hand, drinks that are assumed to be drunk for only their intoxicating properties are considered to be a more appropriate target for price mechanisms. In this way, economic divisions are reinforced by social and cultural divisions, and these divisions structure the policy-making process surrounding alcohol. Understanding the formation of class as the congruence and interplay of economic, cultural and social forces, alcohol policy and the surrounding discussions can therefore be seen as a key way in which class is constituted in contemporary Britain.