“They will not serve me peanuts at all”

On a short trip around the interwebnets, involving a LiveJournal, a HypnoBoris and Hansard, I came across this extract from a Commons debate on either drunken behaviour or arrest without warrant, or something. It starts fairly innocuously, discussing the wording of the bill, but then Boris gets involved and raises the issue of being drunk on a plane, and the unavailability of peanuts, and more. Only slightly surreal…

Boris Johnson (Henley, Conservative)

Of course, we want to crack down on drunken football hooligans, but how does the hon. Gentleman define “drunk”? I am worried that people who may merely have had a couple of glasses of the in-flight booze could be caught under the terms of the Bill, and that we are taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

[...]

Boris Johnson (Henley, Conservative)

I, like other Members, rise in full support of the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr. Roy). It is an excellent measure in so far as it is intended to crack down on louts and people who endanger the lives of others in aeroplanes. We have heard some vivid accounts of people who had clearly drunk too much, were the worse for wear and should not have been on the plane in that condition.

We are paid to be precise in our use of language, and I want to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) in turning to the question of what constitutes drunkenness, not because I think that it vitiates the Bill, but because the Bill would benefit from some refinement and reflection. The Minister intervened on my hon. Friend and said that he would define drunkenness as being a lack of self-control caused by taking alcohol.

We have to face the fact, however, that we are proposing to make it an offence for which one can be arrested, without a warrant, to be drunk – that is all – on an aeroplane. We have to be very cautious about what we intend by that, because as I understand it, there is no intention to have any system of breathalysers on board aeroplanes, to verify a person’s blood-alcohol level, or to demonstrate beyond peradventure that someone is drunk. No one seems to have thought about whether the airline itself will be accessory after the fact to making a person drunk on board a plane. After all, they ply you – not you, Mr. Deputy Speaker; they ply one – with alcohol from the moment of take-off.

George Osborne (Tatton, Conservative)

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point to which the Minister may wish to respond. If an airline or a steward or stewardess are aware that someone is drunk and continue to supply that person with alcohol, how will they be affected by the Bill? Will they be guilty, as my hon. Friend suggests, of being an accessory to a crime?

Boris Johnson (Henley, Conservative)

My hon. Friend amplifies the very point I sought to make. The legal position of the airline that supplies the alcohol to the passenger in flight is not clear.

We must accept that people have different susceptibility to alcohol, particularly when they have not eaten. It depends on their body size, and all the rest of it. People may, to all intents and purposes, become drunk under the definition in the Bill without drinking before they board the plane.

I recall a recent long flight to sub-Saharan Africa in the company of various representatives of UNICEF and a senior BBC figure, whom I shall not name.

George Osborne (Tatton, Conservative)

Go on.

Boris Johnson (Henley, Conservative)

No, I shall not. He is a nice, distinguished man, and a passionate smoker, devoted to nicotine. He used to rely on nicotine to get him through the stress of a long flight, but, there being no possibility of smoking on our plane, he was driven to have a few, which calmed him down a great deal and was highly beneficial. I put it to the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw that one reason why people increasingly seem to be slightly the worse for wear for alcohol on board planes may be that so many flights are completely no-smoking flights. Might the Minister reflect on that, thinking whether, if there is to be a total ban on being drunk on a plane at any time, it may be necessary to consider some compensatory measure to bring back smoking sections on aeroplanes? Many people frankly find it difficult to put up with the rigours of a long flight without the sustenance and reassurance of a smoke. Indeed, one cannot even get peanuts nowadays on aeroplanes, because they have been banned. They will not serve me peanuts at all.

George Osborne (Tatton, Conservative)

Really?

Boris Johnson (Henley, Conservative)

It is because of nut allergies. One cannot smoke, and one is now not to be allowed to be drunk, without there being any definition of drunkenness in the Bill.

George Osborne (Tatton, Conservative)

An infringement of our civil liberties!

Boris Johnson (Henley, Conservative)

I do not mean to say that that is necessarily, as my hon. Friend says from his sedentary position, an infringement of our civil liberties, but it may be. Without adequate definition, and without a more rigorous approach to the language, there is a risk that good people, who are simply trying to calm themselves down aboard an aeroplane, may find themselves caught by the terms of what is otherwise an excellent and well-intentioned measure.