Compelling offers

This week, Peter Fahy, a chief constable from Cheshire, called for the legal drinking age to be raised to 21. This is presumably following all the great evidence from the US of how effective this policy is, and ignoring the fact that no other country in the EU has a limit set at 21 years. On the issue of measures designed to make parents take greater responsibility for their children's actions, he has this to say, which is commendable for using equal measures of the type of paternalistic and fascist language that is so prevalent in political life these days:

"There are schemes whereby youth workers and other people offer support to parents who may have a problem with a youngster who's drinking. But we find a lot of parents will not take up that offer... If people are not willing to take up that offer, then there is some form of sanction which actually makes them come and take up that offer."

Presumably, what he means is that when parents are "offered" support, it's up to them to decide that they want it. Of course, not all parents may actually want it, in which case they should be "encouraged" to want it by means of "sanctions". These must be compelling offers indeed. Or perhaps it's just indicative of the fact that we're now far better at devising imaginative language than imaginative policy.