A small victory

The Armadale experiment may yet go down in history as a turning point in Scotland's battle with booze. In any event, it will be difficult to ignore the statistics from the West Lothian town where, for the past six weeks, no-one under 21 has been able to buy alcohol from off-licences between 5pm and 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays. As the pilot period draws to a close, the interim report shows the number of calls to the police reporting assaults or vandalism by youths has more than halved.