Blair's father-in-law slams 24 hour pubs

LONDON, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair's once hard-drinking father-in-law, actor Tony Booth, has called Blair's liquor licensing liberalization "muddle-headed."

In an article in the Daily Mail, Booth condemned the new law that will permit pubs to remain open for 24 hours. It comes into effect Thursday.

Booth told the newspaper alcohol was a "drug that ruined my relationships with the women I loved, caused me to abandon my children -- at one wretched point I even denied their existence -- and threatened my career." He said he has not had a drink in 26 years.

"Some people will never be sober again," he said in the article, calling the move "wrong, muddle-headed and terribly dangerous."

"Longer licensing hours won't suddenly turn us into a nation of Mediterranean sophisticates happy to make a small glass of red wine last an hour or two at some pavement cafe.

"In this country we don't drink that way. We drink in a more primitive, frightening, Anglo-Saxon way. We drink to get drunk."