I think largely it is because the UKian drinking culture is seen as a contest.  Can't drink 10 Stellas?  Then you're a big girls blouse.

I am surprised no one's gone through the history books - we are a nation that drinks to get drunk as opposed to the continental style of drinking for the taste and sociability.  Pepys's diary is quite illuminating on this, and all the tales of gin palaces in the 1800's.  So in fact, any clampdown on getting hammered is infringing our right to access our historical culture.

And let's not forget that the Saxon warriors would have special battle-mead to drink before going off fighting.

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There have been fewer than 10 nutter-with-a-katana incidents[*] since the turn of the millenium. Unfortunately, they play into an area the press love, so they've been hyped beyond all proportion. Our government is incredibly media-reactive; they'd rather do something about a "sexy" non-problem and be seen to be doing something than get on with the task of doing boring, tedious, effective work.

[*] - Again - I'm not talking about the gangland (the Triads have a fondness for blades, for example, but this law isn't going to affect them one iota); I'm talking about the UK equivalent of Virginia-Tech-type goofballs; except, as no guns are involved, much less harm was done. In the US, any goofball can get a gun; here it's much harder, so they go with other items.

pedestrian versus car difference too. American settlements (a handful aside) are built around the car; ours tend to be built more around pedestrianised routes that have existed for centuries. In the US, people tend to come out of the bars, get in their cars, and go home. In the UK, you have hundreds of different drunken people, from tens of different bars, all walking on the street at the same time (a tiny city like Canterbury, for example, is almost completely pedestrian and has over 200 pubs in a very small area). Our urban structures are (generally) more conducive to a good ruckus. Basically.

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