The one certainty about crisis is that it makes bad situations worse. Anyone working in restaurants, pubs, cafes and clubs that depend on alcohol sales will have noticed ominous developments before Covid-19 struck.

Like so much else that matters, government policy has had nothing to do with the cultural change. The drying out of Britain has been fuelled by changes the authorities never initiated: greater awareness of the dangers to health, the growth of British Islam with its religious prohibitions, and the young turning away from their parents’ addictions.